


Bond

by hedera_helix



Series: Crossing [3]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, M/M, Sexual Content, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-22 20:27:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 76,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14316534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hedera_helix/pseuds/hedera_helix
Summary: “Levi?” Isabel asks, her voice suddenly more serious. “That thing you told Mama about why you ran away.”“Yeah?” Levi says after a few seconds when she doesn’t continue, feeling a nervous twitch in the pit of his stomach.“Was it a lie?”“No,” Levi tells her straight, slipping a little confusion into his voice. “Why would you think I lied?”Levi catches her shrug from the corner of his eye. “I don’t know,” she admits. “It’s like… there’s something different about you and Erwin, that’s all.”





	1. Chapter 1

“ _Must be your skin that I’m sinking in, must be for real ‘cause now I can feel. And I didn’t mind, it’s not my kind. It’s not my time to wonder why.”_

“ _Hey.”_

Levi frowns and presses rewind on Ansel’s old Walkman, readjusting the position of the headphones on his ears. Missed it again.

“– _didn’t mind, it’s not my kind. It’s not my time to wonder–”_

There. A whoosh and a quiet, wooden tap. Someone’s opening the window. Another wooden sound, louder, more like a crash than a tap. Another whoosh as the window closes.

“ _Hey.”_

He’s talking quietly, in an almost whisper. The tape recorder has barely caught the sound.

_“Hey.”_

She’s smiling. Levi can hear it in her voice. He presses the headphones against his ears with the palms of his hands to hear beyond the quiet static of the tape.

“ _You brought the guitar?”_

_“Yeah, I told you.”_

He grunts a little, like he’s settling down somewhere. On the bed? On the floor? They both say another “hey” that’s followed by a couple of wet smooching sounds that make Levi frown.

_“You okay?”_

_“Yeah,”_ she says; Levi hears her yawn. “ _Just lying in the sun.”_

_“Lying in the sun?”_

_“Yeah.”_

A couple more smooches.

“ _You been singing?”_

 _“Yeah,”_ she tells him, still smiling. “ _How’s the van?”_ A short silence; he’s probably shaking his head, because when she continues, all she says is, “ _No?”_

“ _Tommy can’t figure out what’s wrong with it. I think we need to take it to a shop or something._ ” He sounds frustrated and sighs.

There’s a moment when they don’t speak. Levi can hear a few banging sounds, some of them echoing. Someone strums out a few chords on a guitar, then a couple more.

“ _I could ask dad to take a look at the van._ ”

“ _You’re joking right?_ ” he says, swearing when she laughs; no, cackles. “ _He’d probably cut the brakes or some shit._ ”

“ _Probably_ ,” she admits. They’re quiet again, someone plays a couple more chords on the guitar. “ _It’s not the worst thing though right?”_

“ _What is?_ ”

“ _The van_ ,” she says; no hesitation. “ _I mean, you’ll stay for longer now right?_ ”

He’s quiet for a while, then Levi hears them kiss again. And again. Shuffling noises, a loud bang that’s laced with a few out of tune notes from the guitar. She lets out a quiet moan.

“ _How long we got_?”

“ _Dad’s out. He won’t be back till morning_ ,” she tells him impatiently in between a couple more smooching sounds.

“ _What about–_ ”

“ _Don’t worry about Kenny,_ ” she says. “ _I can handle him._ ”

More shuffling, she breathes heavily beyond a few odd rustling sounds, then the tape cuts off. The sound comes back a couple of seconds later.

“ _–easier on you, I couldn’t change though I wanted to. Could have been easier by three. Our old friend fear, and you and me._ ”

Someone’s playing the guitar, and Levi thinks they don’t sound half bad singing together like that, though their words are sometimes mumbled, like they’re passing around a cigarette between themselves. Levi rubs his chest, wondering how it can still ache on what must be the twentieth time he’s hearing it.

“ _You smell so good,_ ” she whispers; it took Levi eight tries to make out what she said.

They keep singing and Levi knows the lyrics by heart by now, just like he knows to expect the sudden change in the mood; they’ve heard something, something the tape recorder hasn’t picked up. They’re both swearing, she says, “ _It’s Kenny_ ” and he swears some more. Levi can hear the shuffling of clothes and a few clinking sounds, like a belt being buckled, then rushed kisses laced with her laughter. The last sounds on the tape are whispered goodbyes, the sound of the window closing, a few seconds of her humming before Kenny calls out her name and she sighs and turns off the recorder.

Levi knows what comes next: Heart-Shaped Box, Comedown, Linger; he’s looked them all up on the internet. He fast forwards past them to The Man Who Sold The World, but before he can start listening again, a knock on the door has him pulling the headphones off his ears. Edith peers in, asking if Levi’s busy, and walks in only after he shakes his head.

“Just thought I’d come and ask you how you’re doing,” she says, clearly trying to sound casual but failing. She’s been doing a lot of this recently; hovering, like Levi’s about to bolt any second. “We’re starting the lunch prep in a minute. Could use the extra pair of hands, with Nile and Marie staying at home again.”

“Yeah, I don’t mind,” Levi agrees at once and lays the Walkman on his nightstand, but before he’s had the chance to stand up, Edith has sat down on his desk chair.

“A group of us are going to the lake after,” she tells him. “Maybe you’d like to come too.”

“I’m going to the mall with Farlan,” Levi says, hands pressed against the smooth surface of his bed. “We were going to meet after lunch sometime. I was thinking I’d take the hybrid?”

She nods encouragingly, but Levi still catches a slight apprehension coming off her.

“Sure thing,” Edith says and smiles, like doing her best to look unconcerned. “Any specific reason you’re going? Did you need something from–”

“Just to hang out,” Levi says and shrugs. “Farlan wants to try and find some cooking thing or something. I don’t know.”

“Alright,” she says again briskly, like she’s not bombarding Levi with questions. “Do you have money? In case you want to buy something.”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Levi assures her and shifts closer to the edge of the bed, preparing to get up when she speaks again.

“What time do you think you’ll be back?”

Levi looks up at her and frowns at the question.

“Before curfew, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he tells her and she hurries to shake her head.

“I was just wondering,” she starts her explanation, waving her hand a little to dismiss Levi’s words. “We might be out at the lake for a while. If you weren’t planning on staying long, you might still catch us when you get back.”

“Well if you’re not all at the house when I get back I’ll know where to find you,” Levi tells her and she nods along.

“Yes,” she agrees, smiling when she lays her hands on her knees. “Good. Everything’s under control.”

“Yeah,” Levi says, trying again to get to his feet but she asks him another question before he gets a chance to.

“Were you listening to your tapes?”

He nods, glancing at the old Walkman. He can sense her curiosity, like she wants to ask him what’s on them. Something else is interrupting that feeling though, a sting of guilt, like she’s upset with herself for wanting to know.

“What’s it like?” she asks him instead. “Does it make you sad or…”

Levi’s shrug makes her words trail off.

“I don’t know,” he tells her, mainly so he won’t have to try and explain what it really is like. He wouldn’t know where to start trying to explain that. “I guess sometimes.”

She nods along for a few seconds before smiling at him. Levi keeps glancing at her, like trying to pick up on something, some kind of fear or uncertainty she’s hiding under all her cheerful interest, but he catches nothing. Either she’s really not freaking out on the inside, or then she’s better at hiding it than Levi is at finding it.

“I hope you know that you can talk–”

“Yeah,” Levi says, wondering how many times she’s offered that by now and how many times he’s refused it. “I know.”

She stays quiet for a while and Levi can sense she’d like to stress the point, to sit in his room until he starts talking if that’s what it takes. In the end she just gets to her feet with a final nod, waiting for him to do the same before they walk downstairs together, walking into the kitchen that’s already starting to fill with people.

“How’s it going, Flight Risk?” Nan asks Levi when he sits down at the kitchen island opposite of her. “Still here I see.”

Levi gives her the finger but smiles when she laughs. “Still haven’t come up with anything new?” he asks her. “That’s pretty sad.”

“Why come up with something new when the old nickname’s already perfect?” she asks him back, laughing again.

“Let it go, Nan,” Edith tells her on her way to the fridge, her tone stern despite the smile on her face.

“Sorry, Mama,” Nan calls out to her, rolling her eyes at Levi.

“I really don’t mind it you know,” he mutters to her and she nods.

“I know,” she says and exhales in a huff. “Different… culture I guess. I don’t know.”

Levi nods along and lets Nan pat him on his back when he walks past her to get himself a glass of apple juice from the fridge. All through the lunch prep, Levi keeps chatting with Nan about motorbikes, quietly aware of Edith listening in and growing more uneasy by the minute. It takes him until lunch finally starts to realize he’s been waiting for something, constantly aware of the changes in the room. Though Levi feels like he can’t relax while he doesn’t know the answer, he waits for someone else to ask the question, feeling a sudden pang of paranoia that makes no sense.

“Where are Erwin and Mike?”

“They had some errands to run, sweetie,” Edith tells Isabel, passing her a basket full of homemade bread. “They’ll be back before dinner.”

“I wanted to go and look at some sneakers,” Isabel tells her, sounding more disappointed than she should over some damn shoes.

“I’m going to the mall with Farlan,” Levi tells her after swallowing a mouthful of his okra and cauliflower fritter. “I can take you if you want.”

“I don’t know,” Isabel drawls, faking apprehension. “I mean, I want to go but I don’t want to die in a car crash…”

“I can drive,” Levi tells her through gritted teeth, breaking into a smile when she grins. “You little shit.”

“Language,” Ansel reminds absent-mindedly from the other side of the table and Levi grunts an apology.

“Mama, is Levi going to kill Isabel?” Marco asks worriedly from his place next to Jean and Edith rushes to shake her head.

“No, he’s not darling, she was just making a joke,” She tells him reassuringly. “It was just a joke. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Okay,” Marco says, sounding anything but convinced and still frowning when he turns back to his fritters.

“See?” Levi mutters to Isabel. “Your jokes are so bad they’re making the kids cry.”

“Well at least my face isn’t ugly enough to make people cry,” she tells him, making a face after he gives him the finger.

“That’s enough, you two,” Edith says, more gently than Levi expected.

“Sorry, Mama,” Isabel says quickly before shoving an entire fritter into her mouth.

 

They walk out to the car after helping Edith and Ansel clear up the dishes. Levi has just shrugged out of his hoodie and turned the engine on when his phone buzzes in his pocket. He types in the passcode and hands it to Isabel.

“Can you check that?”

“It’s from Farlan,” she tells him after a few seconds. “He says he’s going to be late.”

“Okay,” Levi says, peering into the rearview mirror as he backs out of the driveway. “Ask him how long he’s going to be. And where he wants to meet.”

Isabel starts typing while Levi turns the car onto the old gravel road. He turns the AC up to get rid of the stuffy heat that’s raising sweat under his arms.

“What’s he saying?” he asks Isabel once he hears she’s stopped strumming the touch screen with her thumbs.

“He’s still typing,” she mutters and sighs, turning to peer out the windshield right when Levi does. “Who’s that?”

Levi squints at the car that has stopped at the crossroads, trying to make out the license plate, but even before he manages to make out the letters and numbers, he knows whose car it is. He drives up to it and rolls down the passenger side window, frowning when Farlan looks up from his phone and rolls down his own.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Levi calls out over the hum of the engines, raising his brows at Farlan’s nervous shrug.

“I was just…” he starts, glancing at the road ahead and laughing before turning back to Levi. “I need to pop home for a sec. I can be at the mall in like an hour?”

“Uh-huh,” Levi voices, shaking his head a little. “By the bookshop again?”

“Sounds good,” Farlan says, switching off his phone and throwing it on the empty seat next to himself. “See you then!”

“Right,” Levi mutters, rolling up the window and following Farlan past the intersection.

“Yikes,” Isabel whispers next to him, lifting her feet onto the dashboard. “Bet you didn’t need to know all _that_ right now.”

Levi scoffs and shakes his head. “Come on,” he says. “He’s just… enjoying life. I don’t know.”

“So you don’t think it’s at all weird?” Isabel asks him. “I mean… Flagon is like _old_.”

“It’s not like he’s ready for the grave or anything,” Levi mutters, slowing down for a stop sign before turning left while Farlan turns right. “I don’t think he’s even forty yet.”

“Yeah but still,” Isabel insists. “You don’t think it’s weird? Like, at all?”

Levi pauses to consider the question, getting an involuntary flash of Farlan and Flagon rolling around naked on a bed, kissing. He shudders, but just as he’s about to tell Isabel he does think it’s weird, he thinks of Erwin, sitting on the motel bed. Remembering the man’s words to him makes the reply stick in Levi’s throat.

“As long as they’re both okay about it,” he mutters, pretending to be focusing on the driving.

Isabel huffs and drops a pair of sunglasses over her eyes from on top of her head before yawning widely. She plays a little with the car radio, but when she can’t find anything she likes, she switches it off and sighs, planting her feet back down from the dashboard.

“Levi?” she asks, her voice suddenly more serious. “That thing you told Mama about why you ran away.”

“Yeah?” Levi says after a few seconds when she doesn’t continue, feeling a nervous twitch in the pit of his stomach.

“Was it a lie?”

Levi tightens his grip on the steering wheel and glances at Isabel before fixing his eyes on the road. He thinks back to the talk he had with Ansel and Edith after Kenny left, how the lies just came out without him having planned them beforehand. He was nervous about school starting again; there was a lot at stake because it’s his last year. He’d been thinking about Kenny and everyone at the trailer park, kind of worried. It all just got too much. Overwhelming, and he felt like he didn’t belong, even now. He even said that Farlan graduating made him feel like a loser for having to repeat his senior year. Some of the same lies he told Erwin at the motel, but neither Edith nor Ansel kept digging like he had done to get to the real reasons, and Levi was relieved they didn’t – until Edith started her hovering, at least. How Isabel would have any damn clue about any of it is beyond him.

“No,” Levi tells her straight, slipping a little confusion into his voice. “Why would you think I lied?”

Levi catches her shrug from the corner of his eye. “I don’t know,” she admits. “It’s like… there’s something different about you and Erwin, that’s all.”

“Different how?” Levi asks, and she shrugs again.

“It’s just like you’re both…” she starts, her words trailing off when she shakes her head. “Nervous? But almost in a good way.”

Levi stays quiet for another couple of seconds before scoffing. “I don’t know about Erwin,” he says, “but honestly I’m fucking relieved he came after me and dragged me back. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.”

“Maybe that’s it,” Isabel mutters, not sounding too convinced. She doesn’t speak again for a whole minute, finally saying, “Are you really relieved?”

Levi glances at her with a frown. “Yeah,” he tells her emphatically. “It was a dumb ass plan. I’m glad I didn’t go through with it.”

“But are you happy that you’re back?” she asks him next, and until she speaks the words, it never occurred to him that it’s a whole different question.

“Yeah,” he says after a few seconds, wishing already that they could change the subject. “Yeah, I’m happy about that too.”

“So if you’d left,” Isabel goes on, “you would’ve missed us?”

Levi grits his teeth for a moment. “Yeah,” he finally admits. “I would’ve missed you.”

“Mama was _so_ upset,” she goes on, staring out the window. “I mean, she didn’t cry. She’s not a crier. But she was super upset. When she called your uncle, she was shouting _a lot_.”

Levi pictures it in his head for a moment, Edith yelling on the phone and Kenny yelling right back and he feels guilt twisting his insides. Maybe it was the fact that Levi didn’t go back to the trailer park when he ran away that made Kenny stop by the house the next day. He’s tried not to think about it during the past week, but whenever he catches Kenny’s voice on one of the cassette tapes, he can’t help remembering his tall, lanky figure disappearing behind the frame of the kitchen window.

“Everyone was all freaking out,” Isabel goes on. “There was no lunch at the big house or anything. Everyone kept arguing about what to do and yelling–”

“Yeah I get it,” Levi interrupts her, feeling guiltier and guiltier about it as the silence stretches on. “Sorry,” he finally mutters, glancing at Isabel when she shrugs.

“It’s okay,” she says, smiling at him quietly. “I’m happy that you feel guilty at least.”

“Why?”

“It’ll make it harder for you to leave again,” she says so matter-of-factly that for a few seconds Levi forgets to look at the road. “And it means you’re not just thinking about yourself, and that you don’t have sociopathic tendencies.”

Levi glances at her and snorts. “Okay,” he says, elbowing her on her arm. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re kind of a weird kid?”

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re a stupid head?” she asks him back, grinning when they pull up to the parking lot of the mall.

They spend a good twenty minutes at the Foot Locker where Isabel tries on about a dozen different pairs of shoes, all some variety of white and upwards of a hundred dollars. Levi tries to see what’s so special about any of the tennis shoes and sneakers placed on display, but they all look pretty standard issue to him. Maybe it’s his unimpressed expression that keeps the store employees at bay; the only person who speaks to them is the 20-something athletic-looking guy who greets them when they finally leave the store without buying anything.

“What do you want to do next?” Isabel asks him, groaning when she catches him looking at a hairdresser’s. “Seriously?”

“It’s not going to take them long,” Levi tells her, running his hand quickly through the overgrown undercut at the back of his head. “You’re so ungrateful, you know? After I spent forever in–”

“Yeah, okay,” she interrupts him and huffs, annoyed. “Get your hair cut. Whatever. As long as no one tries to cut mine.”

She keeps swiveling on her chair all the while a heavily-perfumed lady with painted nails trims Levi’s hair, cutting it higher when he asks her to. It’s a good feeling, all the fresh buzzcut reaching past his ears. When the woman holds up a mirror to show him the back, Levi runs his hand along the undercut and squints.

“You can cut it a bit more,” he says. “Just a bit higher. Like an inch or something.”

“Sure thing, honey,” she tells him, firing up the buzz cutter. “That’s a wild looking scar you’ve got! How’d you get it?”

“Dog bite,” he tells her, shivering a little when Isabel grins.

“Hope they put that thing down,” the lady mutters and Isabel huffs.

“It was my fault,” Levi tells her, bowing his head so she can work on his neck. “I kept winding him up. Should’ve known better.”

“No dog is bad,” Isabel puts in. “Some just have bad owners. If you ask me, they’re the ones who should be put down.”

She’s still cursing out the hairdresser when they walk out a couple of minutes later to meet Farlan in front of the bookstore near the entrance. He’s all freshly-showered now and Levi doesn’t miss the fact he’s even taken the time to do his hair. He’s eating cherry flavored Twizzlers and offers some to Levi and Isabel.

“New hair,” he comments, pointing a licorice stick at Levi’s head. “Nice. You almost look old enough to drive now.”

“Almost,” Levi agrees, running his fingers quickly through his hair.

They keep eating their candy while they walk over to the closest store that sells kitchen appliances. Farlan starts looking at a few gadgets while Levi peers at the price tags.

“What the hell is an air fryer?” he asks Farlan who’s reading through a review of one of the models on his phone while Isabel keeps opening and closing a lid of a rice cooker nearby.

“It’s a healthier way to deep fry food,” Farlan explains quickly, squinting at the appliance on the shelf for a few seconds before turning back to his phone. “It uses a lot less oil. I don’t really know how it works.”

“It’s expensive as fuck,” Levi comments, looking at the price tag.

“Yeah, it does cost a bit,” Farlan agrees absently, “but I’ve been working better hours and I’ve been wanting to treat myself.”

“Right,” Levi voices, not wanting to get into how he’s never really understood the concept. “Well it’s your money. Guess you can spend it however you like.”

Farlan agrees in an inattentive grunt, frowning at his phone for a couple of seconds before shoving it into his pocket.

“I don’t know about either of these models though,” he whines, turning them this way and that before sighing. “I might be better off ordering one online.”

Isabel groans loudly at that. “Can you make up your mind already?” she asks Farlan impatiently. “They’re all basically the same anyway.”

“Now you know how I felt at the Foot Locker,” Levi tells her, ignoring the face she makes.

They leave without Farlan buying any of the appliances and walk around the mall a little aimlessly until Farlan says he wants to get a smoothie from the coffee shop on the second floor. Levi buys one for Isabel as well, choosing a coconut flavored drink for himself before they sit down at one of the small round tables that overlooks the main thoroughfare of the mall. The smoothie turns out to be too sweet for Levi’s liking, and he only drinks half of it before giving the rest to Isabel, who has already finished hers by then.

“So,” she says suddenly after a lull has come over the conversation. “What’s Flagon like in bed?”

Farlan nearly chokes on his smoothie and it takes a couple of good whacks on the back from Levi for him to stop coughing.

“Aren’t you too young to know what sex is?” he finally asks Isabel who snorts.

“Please,” she says. “I’m fourteen, not four. I know how it goes down.”

Farlan gives Levi an incredulous look and shakes his head. “Well, whether you do or don’t, I think I’m going to withhold all comments about that for now, thanks.”

“That bad, huh?” Isabel comments and nods, faking sympathy.

“No,” Farlan tells her, pausing to drink his smoothie through a straw. “It’s just private.”

“Would you be telling Levi about it if I wasn’t here?” she asks him, narrowing her eyes when Farlan glances at Levi. “Figures. This is such an old boys’ club.”

“Me not telling you about my sex life is me discriminating against you because you’re a girl?” Farlan clarifies, snorting a laugh when Isabel nods.

“Well you just said you’d tell Levi if–”

“I’m not being sexist right now, Isabel, I’m being ageist,” Farlan interrupts her firmly. “Honestly? I just think you’re a little young to hear about it.”

“Old enough to smell it all over you,” Isabel mutters, taking back her words with a quick “Nothing” as soon as Farlan asks her to repeat them.

“I don’t…” he asks Levi in a whisper when they’re leaving the coffee shop. “I mean, I had a shower. I don’t still smell like–”

Levi shakes his head to cut off Farlan’s words. “She’s just a bit…” he starts, ending with a shrug. “You know.”

Farlan agrees in a grunt, still looking perplexed enough for Levi to scold Isabel about the whole thing on the drive back to the house.

“I don’t understand why we’re not supposed to tell people anyway,” she complains, staring out the window. “I’m sick of faking getting hurt at soccer practice.”

“It’s just how it is,” Levi offers as a feeble explanation.

“But why though?”

Levi shrugs and keeps his eyes on the road as he thinks. “I don’t know,” he finally says. “I never really thought about it. Just figured it was something you don’t talk about.”

Isabel clicks her tongue and shakes her head a little, but doesn’t mention it again for the rest of the drive. Levi’s still turning the question over in his own mind when he gets to the kitchen at the main house to drink a glass of iced tea. Isabel follows him there, leaning onto the kitchen island like she’s just run a marathon.

“Do you think everyone’s still at the lake?” she asks Levi who nods.

“Probably,” he says, emptying his glass with two large gulps. “You want to go?”

“Too hot for anything else,” she comments, standing up slowly. “I’ll go get my stuff. Meet you outside the pup house in fifteen?”

“Yeah,” Levi agrees, refilling his glass at the fridge, nearly spilling iced tea on himself when the kitchen door suddenly opens.

Erwin.

They look at each other mutely for a couple of seconds. Erwin’s hand still rests on the doorknob, like he’s not sure he wants to enter the room after all. Their eyes meet for a fleeting moment before Levi turns away and focuses on his glass again, trying to force the iced tea past the lump of nervousness that’s suddenly risen to his throat. The front door closes in the distance and the sound seems to bring Erwin back to his senses and make him walk further into the room.

“Was that Isabel?” he asks Levi who nods and walks over to the sink to rinse out the glass and place it in the dishwasher. “Mother said you took her to the mall.”

“Yeah,” Levi says, leaning back against the counter and staring at the tips of his tennis shoes.

They fall quiet again until Erwin lets out a nervous laugh.

“You cut your hair.”

Levi runs his hand quickly up the freshly buzzed undercut. “Yeah,” he says, trying to think of something else, but starting a rambling story about a haircut seems like a dumb idea, so he keeps quiet.

“I like it,” Erwin comments, making Levi’s neck feel uncomfortably warm. “It’s… shorter.”

“From the back, yeah,” Levi agrees, feeling suddenly naked and exposed when he glances up at Erwin; he keeps following the man with his eyes when he crosses the room to the fridge and takes out a container full of cold, fried tofu.

“You going to the lake?” he asks Levi who nods.

“With Isabel. Yeah.”

Erwin nods along, eating the tofu with his fingers; whenever Levi looks up, it seems at least one of them is posed between the man’s lips.

Uncomfortable.

“Room for one more?” Erwin suddenly asks, and it takes all of Levi’s strength not to answer in his customary indifferent shrug.

“Sure,” he says, and even tries a quick smile, which Erwin answers with an awkward laugh.

“Great,” he states, looking around himself distractedly for a few seconds before picking up the lid of the container off the counter and walking over to place them both in the sink. “Meet you out back in five?”

Levi nods, lingering in the kitchen for a short moment after Erwin has left before running upstairs to grab his swimming trunks and towel just in case. Glancing at the bed, he wonders if the four minutes he has left would be enough time for a quick wank, but decides against it when he realizes it’s not enough time to wash up in afterwards. He’s still feeling that tension in his groin when he walks around the house to meet Erwin at his separate entrance.

“How was the mall?” Erwin asks him after they’ve started walking, and Levi answers with a shrug.

“Nothing special,” he says, scoffing. “Farlan wanted to look at some air fryers.”

“I’ve been meaning to get one of those for the pack,” Erwin muses, and it doesn’t surprise Levi at all to hear him say it. “Do you remember which kind Farlan got?”

“None of them,” Levi tells him and snorts. “He always takes forever to decide on anything.”

“Maybe he’s just being careful,” Erwin says, and Levi can feel his eyes on him. “It’s not the worst thing.”

“Not the worst thing,” Levi agrees, “but sometimes you just have to make up you damn mind.”

Erwin stays quiet for a few seconds. “I suppose you do,” he finally says, and Levi can hear his smile in his voice.

They meet up with Isabel at the pup house and continue down the path that leads through the forest. She’s keeping up a conversation with Erwin the whole way to the lake, and Levi doesn’t mind staying quiet, stealing glances at Erwin’s neck and calves whenever he’s not looking around at the sunlight streaming through the trees, giving the air a green hue and a heady fragrance that makes Levi want to shed his clothes and feel the ground under his paws.

“You made it!” Edith greets them when they get past the woods, giving instant compliments to Levi for his new haircut, telling him he didn’t have to pay for it from his allowance.

“It’s okay,” Levi assures her, spreading his towel on a shadowy patch of grass near the tree line. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Well if you’re sure,” she comments quickly before Marie calls for her from the shallows.

“Try not to let it bother you,” Erwin tells Levi quietly, drifting next to him with his towel.

“What?” Levi asks him, looking up with a frown and catching Erwin staring after Edith.

“Her fretting,” he tells Levi, something so fed up in his voice that Levi feels it in the back of his throat.

“Right,” he mutters.

For a few seconds Levi tries to think of a way to change the subject, but when Erwin suddenly lays his hand on Levi’s shoulder, his fingers nearly touching the scar on his neck, Levi freezes. His mind stays blank for no longer than a second before some instinct takes over and he pulls away from the touch, nearly causing Erwin to fall over, one tan loafer in hand.

“You okay?” he asks Levi, confused.

Levi makes a noise he hopes is reassuring, or even a confirmation of anything, and sits down on his towel. Erwin finishes taking off his shoes and walks into the shallows to play with the pups, getting dark, wet blotches onto his t-shirt and shorts when the kids splash him. Levi watches him laughing and joking around and wonders how some people can be like that, so happy and carefree and _comfortable_. He wishes that was something that rubs off on people when you spend time with them, but knows that everything Erwin is, all that perfection, is a lot more likely to make him feel like an ugly, ill-tempered gremlin than anything else.

When he’s back in his room that night, Levi keeps thinking of that passing touch, of Erwin’s fingertips on the scarred skin while his own draw circles onto the soft fabric of his underwear. He thinks about what that touch could turn into if he wasn’t such a fucking coward and if Erwin wasn’t… well, whatever his excuse is. He thinks of how hard Erwin could clutch his neck, how tight his grip would get when he’d come. It doesn’t take Levi long to, but like he’s done every time ever since that night in the motel, he lies on his bed afterwards, staring up at the ceiling and growing more uncomfortable by the second when he tries to solve the unsolvable questions buzzing in his skull.

Does he really want that? Does Erwin? Or is this supposed to be it; them dancing around each other like they have so far, never taking more than a step towards the other and then taking two steps back the next second just to be on the safe side? On the safe side of what? Of potentially making the worst mistake of their lives? It’s not like that isn’t a definite possibility. For a second Levi pictures it: starting something with Erwin only to have it come down in flames, and then having to live together afterwards. The thought makes him shudder and grit his teeth, and he tries to block it by grabbing the Walkman from his nightstand and listening to the tape over and over again, but he’s barely gotten to the bit where he can hear Kenny mock-singing in the background when a knock on his door has him pulling the headphones down from his ears.

“Bad time?” Erwin asks, nothing but his head in the room until Levi shakes his head and he steps further inside. “Just thought I’d run this up to you.”

Levi sits up and reaches out to take the bundle of black fabric Erwin’s handing to him. His hoodie.

“You left it in the car,” Erwin says, already backing away, towards the door.

“Thanks,” Levi mutters quickly, fighting the urge to press his face against the bundle he’s holding; it smells like him, and like Erwin, and the combination nearly makes him thrust his hand right back into his underwear.

“Is that one of the tapes?” Erwin asks him, if possible even more curious than Edith was earlier.

“Yeah,” Levi says, looking down at the Walkman. For a second he considers letting Erwin take a listen, but in the end it doesn’t feel right, for whatever reason.

“Must be strange,” Erwin comments, and when Levi looks up he sees the deep frown on the man’s face. “Hearing her again.”

Levi stays quiet for a while, just staring at Erwin’s face, feeling the sympathy radiating from him; it doesn’t feel like pity anymore.

“Yeah,” he finally admits; he’s tried not to think about it, tried to think of the woman on the tape as someone else – and for a large part it’s not difficult. Sometimes she doesn’t sound like his mom. It doesn’t feel right that someone like her should have a kid at all.

“Are you alright?”

Levi looks up again, and something about Erwin’s expression makes the default answer of “yeah” die on his lips. Instead he shrugs.

“I don’t regret listening to them,” he says. “That’s probably a good sign.”

Erwin nods along, smiling so sadly it makes Levi ache. “No doubt you’re right about that,” he says, and Levi gets the feeling he’s trying to sound encouraging. “You know, if you ever want to talk–”

“Thanks,” Levi interrupts him, just like he did with Edith. “I’m alright though.”

“It doesn’t have to mean you’re not alright,” Erwin tells him. “Sometimes people just… talk. No ulterior motive.”

“Sorry,” Levi says, scoffing a laugh. “New concept.”

Erwin laughs too. “Just think about it,” he says, pushing himself off the doorframe he’s been leaning against. “I’m up for it if you are.”

“Thanks,” Levi says again, though it doesn’t feel like the right thing to say. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Erwin nods one last time before leaving the room, and when Levi lies back down on the bed, he wonders how the length of a house can feel like the longest distance to cross in the world.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been 84 years but here it is.

The movie theater smells like popcorn and candy when they enter, Mike holding the door while the pups march in, drawing everyone’s eyes with the hellish amounts of noise they make. Levi grabs a hold of Eren’s sleeve to stop the boy from sprinting into a run as soon as he’s past the entrance.

“No running,” he tells the kid, releasing his grip when he yanks his arm free. “Behave yourself.”

“Yeah yeah,” Eren mutters, following Levi at a more restrained pace when he walks further in. “ _You_ behave.”

“Stop being a brat,” Levi mutters, lowering his voice when Edith passes them to beckon them all towards her.

They all congregate around her in the center of the room to do a quick headcount before Nan starts taking everyone’s snack orders, writing down the number of slushies and size small popcorns and other treats as the kids shout them out, all yelling at once until Edith manages to calm them down and make them speak one at a time. When Erwin breaks away from the group to go get their tickets, Levi follows him, telling himself he’s only trying to get away from the noise. He drifts over to the counter when Erwin’s finishing the purchases and lets out a low whistle when he sees the final sum on the register.

“No wonder you have movie nights at the house,” he comments in a whisper, feeling a nervous tingle on his neck when Erwin laughs.

“And I haven’t even paid for the snacks yet,” he whispers back, smiling at the girl working the register when she hands him a thick stack of printed-out tickets.

When Nan comes over with her list of demands, Levi drifts back over to the group not to have to feel the girl at the register growing more and more overwhelmed as Nan goes on laying out the enormous order. He listens in on Isabel while she’s trying to convince Ymir that they’re on a secret mission to observe human behavior in the wild, which is why they shouldn’t change forms.

“If they find out we’re not like them, we’ll fail the mission,” she explains in a conspiratory whisper. “So we have to keep it cool. Capiche?”

Levi scoffs when he sees Ymir’s unconvinced and unimpressed stare, but at least she doesn’t slip into her fur right then and there, which probably counts as a point for Isabel. Instead she slouches back over to where Historia is standing by Edith, hands distractedly playing with her blonde braids. Always the best behaved of the kids, which is why Levi barely ever notices she’s around.

“Movie night at the house would’ve been easier,” Levi says to Isabel who shrugs.

“All you need to do is get them sitting down and it’s basically the same,” she tells him, yawning. “Besides, they’ll be easier to handle once we get back home, ‘cause they’ll be all tired from the trip.”

Levi looks over to where Edith is scolding Ymir for pushing Sasha down onto the floor, and scoffs. “It’d be better if they’d be easier to handle now.”

Mike walks over with the first tray of popcorn and drinks and the kids crowd around him like a wave, all reaching to get their treats until Nan barks an order for them all to calm down and wait their turn. Levi shuffles closer, trying to ignore the group of teenagers over by the entrance staring at their group when he gets his own ticket, blueberry slushie and popcorn. He helps Edith and Nan and Mike when they start herding all the kids into the theater until he sees Erwin still at the register, waiting for the rest of the snacks.

“You need a hand?” Levi asks him, but Erwin shakes his head, smiling.

“Go find yourself a seat.”

Levi walks into the theater after showing his ticket to the guy at the door, gritting his teeth a little when he sees the chaos that the grown-ups are trying to control. Edith points him over to one of two empty seats in the middle of two pairs of kids on either side. When Levi looks around, he sees the other kids sprinkled around in a similar way, with always a seat or two between them for someone older to keep the peace. Divide and conquer. Probably the only way they’ll get through the movie without getting kicked out of the theater.

“Erwin said he wanted to sit here,” Levi tells Isabel when she makes a move towards the empty seat next to him; he flavors the lie with a meaningful glance at Eren who’s fighting his way out of his hoodie next to the vacant seat.

Isabel sighs heavily when she starts climbing the stairs to take a seat higher up, next to Sasha and Connie. The pups are all in their seats, but the theater is still full of restless shuffling with them settling down with their snacks, trying to take off their jackets and hats without knocking over their tubs of popcorn. Levi’s eyes are drawn away from them when Erwin walks into the room; he waits until the man is near his row of seats before leaning closer to the aisle.

“I saved you a seat,” he half-whispers, glancing up at Isabel in passing to see if she’s heard it, but she’s busy trying to stop Sasha from eating all of her popcorn before the movie even starts.

“Thanks,” Erwin says, handing off a few more tubs of popcorn to Mike before shuffling past Eren and Mikasa to sit down next to Levi. “It’s a good seat.”

“Yeah, you can…” Levi starts, pointing forward, feeling like an idiot when he finishes with, “see the screen and everything.”

Erwin laughs a little; Levi catches a whiff of his sweat when he takes off his jacket and when Erwin reaches into his tub of popcorn to snatch a few, his gaze follows and lingers on Erwin’s fingers until he manages to look back to the screen.

“You guys excited?” Erwin asks the kids on either side of them, grinning when they nod and exclaim their yeses; he’s still smiling when he turns to Levi and asks, “What about you? Are you excited?”

Levi scratches the back of his neck, his instinct telling him to shrug and say it’s just a dumb kids’ movie, but looking at Erwin he doesn’t want to be the asshole who makes fun of something the pups are so fired up about.

“Yeah,” he says instead; smiling feels uncomfortable on his face. “I’m totally excited.”

“Great,” Erwin whispers. “I’m glad you’re having a good time.”

Levi keeps watching him out of the corner of his eye while he talks to the kids; he doesn’t stop until the lights finally go out. In the dark the scent of Erwin’s sweat grows stronger and keeps distracting Levi from the movie. He can’t stop thinking about how close Erwin is, how easy it would be to reach over and touch his hand; like this is a date, like they’re not surrounded by kids shoveling popcorn into their mouths and slurping loudly on their drinks. For a few minutes Levi lets himself wonder: if this was a date, what would happen? Would he have the guts to take Erwin’s hand? Would Erwin put his arm around Levi’s shoulder, the crook of his elbow pressed firmly against the scar on his neck? Would they share a tub of popcorn? And after the movie, would they go to the vegan café in town and have something to eat? And after…

And after, they’d go back to the house where the whole pack would be present and accounted for, where Edith and Ansel would be awake in the kitchen or doing crossword puzzles in the living room, ready to ask them how their date went like the weird hippies they are – or worse yet, ignoring the whole thing like Kenny used to do.

The thought stops Levi’s wondering and for the rest of the movie he tries to catch up with the plot again and fill in the gaps from before, but when he listens to the pups talking excitedly about the movie on the drive back, less than half of the stuff they say makes any sense to him. They start dinner prep as soon as they’re back with Isabel and Mike keeping the kids busy with board games in the living room. Every once in a while a fight breaks out and they can all hear the angry yelling all the way to the kitchen.

“I’m so glad I delegated that to Mike,” Nan mutters, taking a sip of a bottle of beer; looking at it, Levi suddenly wishes he was drinking too.

“He’s definitely the mom out of the two of you,” Levi agrees, chopping up the rest of an onion before Ansel swoops in to carry the cutting board over to the stove.

“Runs in the family I guess,” Nan comments, moving over to the pots of pasta sauce Ansel is working on to give him a hand.

Levi gets up too and walks over to the pantry to pick leaves off the potted fresh basil growing on the window sill. He keeps bringing his hands up to his face when he works; he likes the smell, better than many of the other herbs growing on either side. Outside the window the grounds stretch out down a gentle slope and Levi can see the apple trees that will soon need to be freed of the weight of their harvest. The kitchen will get busy after – he caught glimpses of the mayhem a year ago, of the pots full of jam and the thin rings laid out onto baking trays drying in the ovens. No doubt Isabel and him will be having them for lunch at school for months to come.

“Hey.”

Levi turns around, nodding awkwardly at Erwin and turning quickly back to the basil though the man walks further in and over to the window. He starts cutting stalks of thyme from the plants, and for a couple of tense seconds the snipping of his scissors is the only sound in the room. The smell of Erwin fills Levi’s mind with the words he spoke at the motel, searing and uninvited. “It’s not easy for me to be attracted to you.” It’s a tempting thought, to let Erwin know it goes both ways – and it damn sure does; even this is making Levi sweat too much.

“How did you like the movie?”

Levi casts a glance at Erwin and shrugs. “It was okay,” he says, not wanting to admit that he could barely keep his mind on it for a full minute with Erwin smelling like musk and an empty bed right next to him. “For a kids’ film. You?”

“Too much fighting for my liking,” the man admits and Levi catches a moment of his genuine regret. “I think we should’ve taken the pups to see something less violent.”

“It’s not as if there was blood spattering everywhere and limbs getting cut off or anything,” Levi comments, hoping his words are some kind of comfort. “It’s not like it wasn’t meant for kids their age. Besides, they’re good pups. One movie’s not going to change that or turn them into little killers or anything.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Erwin agrees, cutting a couple more stalks off the potted thyme.

“I was watching full-on slasher movies when I was their age and I turned out fine,” Levi tells him, remembering how Farlan used to hide behind the covers between peaks at the combo tv unit he had in his room. “They’re going to be okay.”

Erwin hums quietly for a moment and Levi can sense he’d like to add something, but in the end he lets it go.

“Is that the kind of movies you like?” he asks and Levi shakes his head.

“Not really,” he says, turning away from the basil. “They get kind of boring after a while. It’s the same old shit in every movie.”

“So what do you like?”

Levi shrugs. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I don’t watch a lot of movies.”

“Do you not think they’re fun to–”

“It’s not that,” Levi interrupts him. “I just never had the money to go to the movies. Pretty much all the ones I’ve seen I saw with Farlan at his house. Most of them were some gay shit.”

“Some gay shit,” Erwin repeats, laughing when Levi nods. “Alright.”

“So what kind of movies do you like?” he asks Erwin back to better ignore the heat rising onto his cheeks.

“Things that make me think, mostly,” he replies, hands pausing in the task. “Psychological thrillers, documentaries, things like that.”

Levi nods along but doesn’t know what to say. Psychological thrillers. Doesn’t sound too bad. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Erwin had said he likes Croatian silent films or some crazy shit like that.

“Do you want to watch more movies?” Erwin asks him. “I mean, is that something that interests you or–”

“Yeah, I guess,” Levi interrupts him and shrugs. “They’re not all boring, right?”

“Right,” Erwin agrees and laughs. “I think I’ve seen a couple of the not-boring ones.”

“Have you got that basil and thyme yet, Erwin?” Ansel calls into the pantry from the stove and Levi flinches, as if he’s been caught doing something he’s not supposed to.

“I better get these to dad,” Erwin mutters, gathering all the thyme onto the palms of his hands before nodding to the basil Levi has picked. “Can you…?”

“Oh, yeah.” Levi snaps out of staring at Erwin’s hands for long enough to pile the basil leaves onto the thyme. The smell of the herbs lingers and mingles with Erwin’s scent when Levi turns back to the plants on the window sill, frowning and trying to catch the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

When they all sit down to eat, Levi makes sure to leave a couple of seats between himself and Erwin, hoping the distance will throw off anyone who’s noticed them spending more time together. He’s not surprised when Edith plants herself on the chair next to his, and even less surprised by the question she asks first thing.

“Are you nervous about school tomorrow?”

Levi shrugs and swallows down a mouthful of spaghetti before he says, “Not really.”

And he really isn’t. Screw the snobs. He’s just going to go in, get his grades up as far as he can, and get the hell out. He doesn’t need to make friends to do that.

“Good,” Edith tells him, beaming. “You have nothing to be nervous about. You’ve worked so hard, I know you’re going to do splendidly.”

“Thanks,” Levi mutters, “but all I really want is to do better than before. I don’t need to be all that.”

“Of course not, little one,” Edith says, passing her hand quickly across Levi’s cheek. “I just meant you’re going to do well.”

“Yeah,” Levi says, hoping it’s going to bring the conversation to a close, and to his relief Edith drops the subject and turns to talk to Eren about who won at the board games they were playing earlier.

 

Despite what he told Edith, later that night when he’s lying in his bed Levi starts to feel the nerves pooling in the pit of his stomach whenever he sees his school uniform hanging off the door of his closet. Rather than lie there and keep thinking about it – not as if that ever solved anything – he walks back downstairs and out onto the porch where he leaves his clothes in a neatly folded pile before slipping into his fur and taking off in a run. The night that seemed so quiet before is suddenly full of sounds, and the half-buried scents of the animals hiding underneath the trees draw Levi into the woods.

He lets his running slow down to a light trot and keeps his mind sharp not to go after every rustle and murmur he catches along the path. There’s a chill in the earth he can feel under his paws, like the lingering warmth of the summer has finally released its hold. Levi’s already thinking ahead, to crisp autumn mornings of hunting, when the frost on the grass would cover up the tracks of their prey. He can already see Erwin leading them, ears pricked up and wide paws marking the way for the rest of them; the thought makes the dirt underfoot feel colder to Levi when he eases his hold on the leash and gives his wolf a little more freedom to roam, snapping back to himself only when a broken howl breaks the air, followed by barks and growls. It doesn’t take Levi a second to know where they’re coming from.

He runs over to the border, tries to settle down by the boundary but gets back to his paws and paces restlessly back and forth, ears pricked up to catch another whimpering howl, a new set of angry barks that carry a warning – stay away, keep out, do not test me – and Levi knows exactly who’s doing the threatening. They keep ringing out, sending shivers down Levi’s back – but the silence that follows is even worse.

He runs back to the house in a stiff, nervous gallop, gasping for breath by the time he’s back on the porch. He’s still pulling his t-shirt over his head when Erwin steps through the door, holding a steaming mug and looking over towards the border.

“You heard it too,” Levi says, and Erwin nods, thick brows drawn over his eyes.

“Any ideas what it was about?” he asks Levi who stays quiet, looking towards the horizon too.

“It was Kenny and Traute,” he tells Erwin quietly. “No idea what they were barking at each other for.”

Erwin nods along without speaking and takes a sip out of his cup.

“Should you be drinking coffee this late?” Levi asks him, the corners of his mouth twitching when he senses Erwin’s embarrassment.

“I can’t sleep without it,” he says and grimaces. “It’s probably a sign I should cut back.”

“You think?” Levi drawls, glancing behind himself one more time before getting back inside. He hovers by the kitchen door, wondering if he should say something and how to say it until he just blurts out, “Want me to keep you company while you finish that?”

“I should go finish up some work,” Erwin says, sounding disappointed and glancing at his watch. “Don’t you have school tomorrow?”

Levi scoffs to mask the shudder that runs down his spine and to help himself ignore the wave of discomfort that suddenly carries over from Erwin.

“Yeah, I should get to bed,” he says, trying to wrap up the conversation as quickly as possible by moving over to the stairs. “Night.”

“Good night,” Erwin says back, the disappointment in his voice making way for confusion. “And good luck tomorrow. You know, in case I don’t see you in the morning.”

“Thanks,” Levi mutters, hopping up the rest of the stairs two at a time, feeling like it really shouldn’t have made him as out of breath as he is once he gets to his room.

 

The following morning Edith drives them over to the school – Isabel can barely stay on her seat from how excited she is, and Levi spends most of the drive telling her to calm the fuck down. In the parking lot he does his best not to roll his eyes at Edith’s encouraging words, knowing that she means well but feeling like it’s getting a bit much on the tenth time he’s hearing all of it. He joins the throng of students with Isabel, feeling only a little less overwhelmed by the mess of smells and sights as he did a year ago – guess it’s a big change from quiet afternoons sitting at the kitchen island watching Ansel pushing his glasses up his nose every two minutes.

Isabel runs off after a hasty goodbye as soon as she catches sight of her friends and Levi makes his way to a classroom at the other end of the campus. He finds himself a seat in the second-to-last row by the window and keeps an eye on the rest of the class as they sit down at their desks, talking over them with friends about what they did during the summer. He catches a few people whispering about him but keeps his focus on the notepad and pencil he pulls out of his backpack and lays neatly on his desk – until an unpleasant, lazy, drawling voice catches his ear.

“Who’s the Walmart brand rebel in the corner?”

Levi doesn’t look up during the short silence that follows.

“Must be some new kid,” a girl answers, equally lazily.

“No, I remember him from last year,” another joins in, her voice so high-pitched and syrupy it makes Levi shudder. “He must be repeating.”

“Well that’s fucking sad and pathetic,” the first voice announces – a guy with dirty-blond hair and a fancy watch that’s too big for his scrawny wrist whom Levi catches from the corner of his eye when he turns to watch the teacher walking in. “His parents must’ve bribed the school to let him do that.”

Levi grits his teeth, vaguely aware of the guy slouching over to his own seat when the teacher starts the lesson. There’s something so instantly annoying about him that he seems to keep hovering at the edge of Levi’s vision all day, always with an expression like someone just told him the seats of his new Porsche aren’t 100% black angus leather or whatever the fuck. He’s glad to lose the asshole for a moment during lunch, where he finds his way to the little group of werewolves he met the year before – Petra, he remembers her name, but for the guys he only knows their names were fucking weird numbers one, two and three.

“You came back!” Petra exclaims after urging Levi to take a seat. “When you left last year we all thought you’d gone back to your old high school.”

“Yeah, well,” Levi says and scoffs. “It’s kind of a long story.”

“Oh, yeah, we all heard,” Weird Name 1 who reintroduced himself as Oluo tells him in an oddly low voice, like he’s repeating gossip about Levi to Levi himself. “Is it true they had to get the police to come escort you out of your uncle’s pack?”

Levi fixes the boy with a blunt stare that seems to make him realize he’s said something he shouldn’t have. He’s saved from having to start taking back his words by Isabel coming to sit down next to Levi from a few tables down where her friends are waiting for her to get back.

“Did you get a text from Mama?” she asks Levi, barely acknowledging the other people at the table, continuing after Levi shakes his head. “Mike’s picking us up. We need to help him with the shop run afterwards.”

“Okay,” Levi says. “Have you–”

“We have a team meetup after school but it’s only like, half an hour so we should meet by the parking lot at half past three. Okay?”

“Sure,” Levi agrees, a little taken aback by the note of confrontation in Isabel’s voice. “Sounds fine.”

“Good,” she tells him. “Don’t be late.”

“I won’t,” he promises, the frown on his face pulling further over his eyes. “What’s up with you?”

“Nothing,” she tells him, shrugging. “What’s up with you?”

“Nothing?” Levi says back and laughs, shaking his head and deciding to let it go. “You okay? You’ve had a good first day?”

“You sound like Mama,” she tells him and he rolls his eyes. “It’s been so boring. It’s just like every other year.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, except everyone’s acting all ‘ooh, I’m in high school now, look at my boobs’ so it’s super annoying,” she continues and Levi lets out a snort of laughter. “What about you? You thinking about making a run for it?”

“No?” Levi asks and laughs again. “Why would I be?”

Isabel shrugs. “I thought maybe you were going to freak out again and–”

“I’m not freaking out,” Levi tells her flatly. “Like you said, it’s just like every other year. Boring.”

“Yeah?” she asks, suddenly relieved when Levi shrugs and nods. “Well good. I hate it when you freak out.”

“I’m not,” Levi says again, biting into his sandwich when she stands up from her seat.

“And don’t be late,” she tells him before backing away, “or you’ll be walking back home.”

Levi gives her the finger between bites off his sandwich, only becoming aware of the silence at the table when it stretches on a little past comfort.

“What?”

“Was that your sister?” Petra asks him. “I didn’t know you had–”

“What? No,” Levi interrupts her, shaking his head. “That’s just Isabel. She’s another… I mean she was already in the pack when I joined.”

“You two were _so much_ like a brother and sister just now,” Petra tells him, sounding a little taken aback even then. “I swear, I thought for sure that you’ve grown up together.”

Levi glances over at the table where Isabel is talking and laughing with her friends, and smiles.

“She’s a good kid,” he says, turning back to his sandwich, “but she can be a real pain in the ass sometimes.”

“That’s sisters for you,” Gunther says and laughs. “I have two, and they’re the worst.”

 

Levi makes it through the rest of the day much better than he expected, and when he sits down on the stone steps by the main entrance to wait for Mike and Isabel, he feels good and alert, the complete opposite of what he remembers feeling a year earlier. During all his lessons he only came across one thing he didn’t begin to understand, and he marked it in his book first thing so he could ask Ansel about it later. All in all not a bad start to the year.

Though Isabel’s still nowhere to be seen when Mike parks the pick-up near the entrance, Levi crosses over to it and jumps in, nodding a hello to the man behind the wheel. Mike replies in kind, fitting the key in the ignition but not turning it.

“Good day at school?” he asks Levi who shrugs.

“It was alright,” he says, buckling up and pulling his tie looser around his neck. “So we’ll do the shop run now?”

Mike nods. “The first of the napa cabbage are done, Nan wants to start making kimchi from them,” he explains, drumming the steering wheel with his fingers. “We’ll need to stop by the Asian market for some things.”

“Okay,” Levi says, peering through the window and spotting Isabel crossing the campus. “I could check out what kind of tea they have.”

He bends down to check if his wallet is in his backpack, expecting to hear Isabel getting in, but when he looks up again, the girl is still standing by the side of the parking lot, looking around herself restlessly. Levi frowns and rolls down the window, calling out her name. Her head whips around and she sees him, and Levi can sense her anger before she’s halfway to the car.

“You were supposed to wait for me,” she snaps at him as soon as she’s gotten the door open, and Levi can’t understand what’s gotten her in such a bitchy mood.

“What’s the big deal?” he asks her, annoyed. “I was like five yards away, it’s not like I went to Spain.”

She doesn’t answer, just buckles up and leans her back against the seat, staring out the window like she’s determined to ignore him. Mike and Levi exchange a look before he starts the car and backs out of the parking lot. None of them speak for a good couple of minutes until Mike asks Isabel how her meetup went.

“At least _that_ was okay,” she huffs, folding her arms over her chest.

“Something wrong with the rest of it?” Mike asks and Isabel sighs loudly.

“It’s like everyone donated their brain to Goodwill over the summer,” she complains, still staring out the car window. “It’s like, what? You’re in high school now so you have to pretend to be a complete idiot for people to like you? No one cares about your stupid ombre eyebrows Shoshanna! Can you just shut the hell up?”

“Woah,” Mike voices, and Levi catches the worried look he gives Isabel through the rearview mirror. “I thought you were friends with Shoshanna.”

“I was before, but if all she really cares about now are hair extensions and the shade of Tricia Martin’s fake tan, she can go suck it,” Isabel declares, and her hurt and resentment feel like a stone in the pit of Levi’s stomach.

Mike and Levi exchange another look, but it’s obvious neither of them knows what to say to make Isabel feel better. The drive over to the store is quiet and oppressive, and Mike has barely parked when Levi has already thrown open the car door to get out from feeling all the things that are crowding the small space. He expects Isabel to keep slouching on the backseat but she gets out along with him and drags her feet around the store without helping with anything else except running the empty shopping carts back to the store from the pick-up once Levi and Mike are done unloading all their bags. When they get to the Asian market, she refuses to get out of the car.

“That place smells like fish,” she whines. “I don’t want to go.”

“Suit yourself,” Mike tells her, and Levi thinks he can hear a note of impatience in his tone.

“You want me to get you anything?” Levi asks her but she shakes her head and he closes the door to leave her be – but Mike stops him before they’ve reached the store.

“You should go sit with her,” he says, sounding worried and a little guilty. “I can manage by myself there.”

Levi nods before walking back to the car, drawing one deep breath before getting back inside. Isabel doesn’t say anything, doesn’t ask him why he came back, and Levi suspects she knows well enough.

“You okay?” he asks her and she shrugs.

“I just hate it,” she mutters, staring out the window, and Levi doesn’t know what to say.

 

A long talk with Edith seems to help Isabel’s mood, and by dinnertime she’s back to her usual self again, to Levi’s relief, and the next few days at school seem to tax her a lot less than the first, too. Levi wonders what kind of words of wisdom Edith’s been able to drop on the kid to make her so okay with something that bothered her so much to start with – maybe she’d have something that would make Levi not give a shit about the snooty guy at school. He keeps hearing the asshole whispering about him, calling him Walmart brand rebel as if it’s some first-class insult only he could’ve come up with in his infinite fucking wisdom, and the more he hears it, the more Levi wants to punch the guy’s teeth in. He says nothing to anyone about it, not wanting them to fuss over something he can handle just fine on his own – they’re helping him enough as it is with the things that he can’t.

 

By the end of the week, whatever secret negotiations Edith and Isabel have been having culminate in the decision to move Isabel out of the pup house and down the hall from Levi’s room. They announce it together during dinner one evening, Edith beaming her excitement, before rushing over to console a few of the kids who start weeping when they hear it.

“I’m still going to see you all the time,” Isabel tells them, laughing when Historia bursts into tears. “We’ll see each other every day at dinner!”

Levi helps Erwin and Mike move her things over to the main house; in the few hours it takes them he manages to roll his eyes a good twenty times – once whenever Isabel tells him not to damage her posters of the women’s soccer team.

“You’d think these had the fucking Mona Lisa hidden underneath them,” he complains to Erwin, who laughs loudly enough to make Levi’s cheeks flush red.

After all the heavy lifting is done, Levi looks enviously at Mike’s beer while he sits with him and Erwin on the porch, sipping his underwhelming iced tea while Isabel and Edith dust out some old curtains to hang in her new room. There’s something so mesmerizing in watching the little flecks of dust scattering all over in the afternoon sunlight that Levi doesn’t think to look up until Erwin’s walking past him down the porch steps toward the hybrid, holding his jacket and a wad of keys.

“You going somewhere?” he asks the man who nods, already opening the door of the car.

“Just running a few errands,” Erwin replies. “Did you need the car for something?”

“No, I just…” Levi starts, getting to his feet. “Can I come with? I wanted to buy some office supplies.”

“Office supplies,” Erwin repeats, laughing a little when Levi nods, feeling like a fucking idiot; the mess of loose papers between the pages of his notepad is the only reason he doesn’t take back what he said. “Sure. Hop on in.”

Levi runs his glass quickly to the kitchen before grabbing his hoodie off the porch railing and getting into the car. He feels shivers shooting down his arms as soon as Erwin has left the driveway, and that breathless feeling he felt before takes over him once the trees start growing tall on either side of the road.

“Why the office supplies?” Erwin asks him as they’re turning onto the main road.

Levi scratches the scar on his neck and shrugs. “Just want to get things organized, all the handouts and schedules and stuff.”

“That’s smart,” Erwin comments quietly. “I don’t remember being that responsible in high school.”

Levi shrugs. “I’ve only got one shot at this left,” he says, “so I figure I should make the most of it.”

“Like I said, that’s really smart,” Erwin says again, turning to Levi for a second and flashing him a quick smile. “Is it going well?”

Levi laughs. “Better than last year,” he replies, “though that’s not saying much.”

“You know, if you need any help I can always–”

“No, it’s okay,” Levi interrupts Erwin hurriedly. “I’ve got Edith and Ansel. I’m doing alright. You don’t have to worry about it.”

“It’s not that I worry about it,” Erwin says, but Levi shakes his head.

“You’ve got a lot of stuff going on,” Levi tells him as if he knows better – or really knows at all – but Erwin doesn’t keep arguing.

“But everything’s going okay?” he asks again. “You’ve caught up okay? Got things under control?”

“Yeah, everything’s okay,” Levi says, leaning his elbow against the window frame. “There’s this one asshole in my class but I’m handling it, so it’s not really a problem.”

“Why’s he an asshole?” Erwin asks, and for some reason it feels weird to hear him use language like that instead of telling Levi to mind his.

“He’s just a jerk to everyone,” Levi explains – it’s not as if the douchebag has only made comments about _him._ “He’s some rich kid, his parents probably never loved him or some shit. He’s a real pain in the ass.”

“Do you know his name?”

“Something Lovof? I’m not sure,” Levi says, catching the moment when Erwin suddenly tenses up behind the wheel. “What?”

“That sounds familiar,” Erwin explains briefly but doesn’t elaborate, and Levi’s more than ready to change the subject anyway.

“So do you get what this whole thing with Isabel is about?” he asks Erwin who sighs heavily.

“Honestly?” he asks, shaking his head. “It’s about a hundred miles outside my sphere of experiences. I don’t know what to say to her at all.”

“Edith seems to get it,” Levi comments, yawning. “Good thing someone does, right?”

Erwin nods. “And it keeps her busy,” he mutters, something stranger in his tone, like an old resentment resurfacing; though Levi would like to know what it’s about, he keeps his mouth shut.

Erwin’s errands turn out to be a quick check-up of the apartment they renovated over the summer – to make sure everything’s in order before new tenants move in – and a passing stop at the local shelter to donate a bunch of old towels, a sack of dog food and several bottles of laundry detergent. He tells Levi he does it every couple of months, and Levi feels he should’ve known that by now.

They spend much longer in the office supply store, criss-crossing between the shelves to find everything Levi needs: a folder, a stack of post-its, highlighter pens, a new usb stick, page separators so he can file each subject’s papers in their own space, and a few other bits and bobs.

“You should stock up on copy paper,” Levi tells Erwin when they pass a pile of them near the register. “You’re running low.”

Erwin thanks him quickly and grabs a couple large packs of paper and though they’re the only thing they buy that’s not for Levi, the man has paid for everything before Levi’s had the chance to get his wallet out of his pocket. He doesn’t see the point in arguing and keeps quiet while he packs all the things away in paper bags and carries them out to the car.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you,” Erwin says when they’re driving back to the house, “if you need someone to help you out and teach you about computers, I’d be happy to give you a hand. You know, if you need it for school.”

Levi loses a few seconds imagining himself sitting at a laptop with Erwin leaning over him, hot puffs of his breath ghosting past the scar on his neck. He shivers.

“Yeah,” he manages, but has to pause to clear his throat. “Yeah, that’d be great.”

“Good,” Erwin tells him, flashing him another smile. “Just… come and knock on my door sometime.”

Levi nods, all sounds suddenly stuck in his throat. There’s a corner of his mind that doesn’t want to believe that Erwin meant his words to be confined just to asking for help – but even if they weren’t, what’s he supposed to do about it? Actually knock on Erwin’s door to say… what? ‘Hey, do you want to hang out?’ ‘Hey, do you want to come walk the dogs with me?’

As fucking if. Even in his head he sounds like a fucking brat, like someone who doesn’t know his head from his ass when it comes to this stuff, to… whatever the hell this is.

And still something burns within Levi, makes him so desperate to reach out that when Erwin finally stops the car in front of the house, Levi reaches over to wrap his hand around his wrist, to keep him there for just a couple more seconds.

“Thanks,” he mutters without managing more than a passing glance at Erwin. “For the ride.”

He can barely hear Erwin’s muttered ‘no problem’ behind him when he gets out of the car and speeds up the porch steps, stopping only at the foot of the stairs inside when Erwin calls out his name.

“Can I…?” he asks, nodding towards a door by the closet.

He leads Levi in after he’s nodded quickly; the room beyond is empty save for a neatly made bed and an old piano, and Levi’s sure he’s never set foot in it after his first week in the house. He turns to look at Erwin, feeling the urge to rub his neck when the man’s nervousness makes the skin at the back of his head tingle.

“I was wondering if you’d like to go out with me sometime.”

Levi stares at Erwin for a few seconds, trying to decipher the sentence but failing.

“You mean like…” he starts, frowning. “Like when we went to the–”

“No, I mean…” Erwin starts again, pausing to laugh a little, like he finds his own nervousness ridiculous. “I mean a date. That we’d go out on a date.”

Levi feels something twisting in his chest, like his windpipe is being twined into rope or some shit. He keeps looking at Erwin, only realizing to speak when he recognizes that he’s been quiet for an embarrassingly long time.

“Yeah,” he blurts out. “Yeah. I want that. Yeah.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” Levi says again, nodding for emphasis. “Yeah. I definitely want that.”

“Okay,” Erwin says and laughs, a little relieved now. “We’ll… set a date and agree on the–”

“Yeah,” Levi agrees, nodding again like an idiot. “Later is good. We can–”

“Okay,” Erwin says again, wiping his hands on the sides of his trousers a few times before taking a step forward. “So I guess I’ll see–”

“Yeah, see you around,” Levi hurries to say, already backing out of the room, desperate to catch his damn breath.


	3. Chapter 3

When Levi thought about the night beforehand, he somehow didn’t realize to picture other people in the restaurant; the image in his head had only him and Erwin, sitting at a small rectangular table in an otherwise empty room, with a waiter coming over a couple of times to bring them their meals or collect their empty plates. He pictured them talking quietly in an otherwise silent room, casually, like they’ve done before, about nothing in particular. But now as he sits there, across from Erwin at a sleek, black table, the noise and bustle created by the other diners makes him feel self-conscious and keeps distracting him – or would distract him, if there was anything to be distracted from. As the seconds tick by, Levi becomes more and more aware of the fact theirs is the only silent table and the stillness makes him feel even more exposed.

He glances at Erwin across the table and runs a finger under the collar of his shirt in passing, hoping Erwin hasn’t noticed it’s the plain white shirt he wears under the jacket of his school uniform – the only nice thing he has to wear, and he paired it with black jeans and tennis shoes out of necessity. With Erwin in his navy blue shirt and black slacks, Levi knows they look like they’re on a date, and the knowledge makes sweat pool underneath his arms. On top of that, it feels like it’s been a full five minutes since either one of them said anything; it must’ve been before they’d even started on their miso soup.

A sushi place. Before Erwin suggested it, Levi didn’t even know the town had one and he sure as hell would never have thought to go there on a date. As he looks around the room and takes in the fancy decoration and the delicate flowers on the tables, Levi thanks the good sense he somehow managed to scrape together in the trailer park that he told Erwin to pick someplace for them to go; the only restaurants he’s ever eaten at himself have specialized exclusively in burgers and food served in buckets.

“So do you like…” Levi starts just to get a break from the lingering silence and to distract himself from the smell of fish and his own sweat. “Do you eat here a lot or…?”

“Sometimes,” Erwin says, flashing Levi a quick smile that looks a little constipated. “I really love sushi, it’s one of my favorite foods.”

“Cool,” Levi replies, feeling instantly stupid for saying it and not knowing what else to add.

“Have you ever had sushi before?” Erwin asks him and he shakes his head; something about his answer seems to make Erwin uneasy.

“I didn’t know you can make it without fish and stuff.”

“No, it’s really easy to make it vegan,” Erwin explains, already picking up his chopsticks and separating them from each other. “I really hope you enjoy it.”

“Yeah, I’m sure I will,” Levi says and they both fall silent again.

As the quiet drags on, Levi finds his focus drifting to the other people in the restaurant – they make much safer targets than Erwin in his beautiful crisp shirt that stretches a little too tightly across his chest. He keeps staring at the waiters as they go about their business, and all the while his brain is trying to churn out something for him to say, any coherent string of words that doesn’t sound childish as fuck, or like something a distant acquaintance would say. How’s work? The economy sure is something. Did you hear about that earthquake in… wherever the fuck it was?

Fucking hopeless.

“Any progress with that guy who’s a jerk at school?” Erwin suddenly asks and Levi snaps out of his thoughts.

“Don’t know about progress,” he replies and scoffs. “I’m getting ready to punch him in the face to shut him the hell up.”

Erwin lets out a laugh that sounds a little uneasy. “Well,” he mutters, “probably better to find some other way to deal with it.”

“Probably,” Levi agrees, thinking it’s a better response than saying there’s no other way to shut up an entitled little prick like Lovof. “And anyway, it’s only for a year.”

“Right,” Erwin says, flashing Levi a quick smile and turning to his glass of water.

And the silence returns – with a vengeance. The mounting discomfort that wafts across the table from Erwin is barely a match for Levi’s own embarrassment. The sweat gathering under his arms is making his skin itch, and he spends a good thirty seconds wondering if he should excuse himself to the toilet to scratch at himself. He wishes there was a discreet way for him to check for pit stains in the fabric. And all the time his mind is screaming for him to think of something to say, literally anything at this point. When Erwin sighs across the table, it sounds like a zeppelin exploding.

The next thing either one of them says is a quick ‘thank you’ to the waiter when she brings them their meals. Levi looks at the little bite-sized bundles of rice and assorted oddities on the rectangular plate and frowns at the chopsticks he only now picks up and breaks apart like he saw Erwin doing earlier; there are no knives or forks anywhere on the table. The food smells like the sea. Not like fish, which would be normal. Just… like the sea, and Levi’s not sure how he knows that, having never even been to a beach before in his life.

He looks at Erwin across the table and tries to mimic what he’s doing with his hands, placing the chopsticks between his fingers like the man has done. He tries to move the tips closer together and the sticks slip out of his hand and end up on his plate with a clatter.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Levi hurries to answer, picking up the chopsticks, his face growing hotter with each passing second that Erwin spends staring at him. “Yeah, they just… slipped.”

“Have you ever eaten with–”

“Don’t worry, I got it,” Levi interrupts him and places the chopsticks back between his fingers, trying to take extra care this time.

He watches Erwin as he picks up one of his sushi things and dips it gracefully into the little dish full of soy sauce by his plate before eating it in one bite. After a couple of mishaps Levi manages to get a piece of sushi between his chopsticks but when he goes in for the soy sauce, his fingers slip and his sushi ends up swimming in the dish like a strange inflatable beach toy stuck in an oil spill.

“Fuck,” Levi hisses, his ears growing hot when Erwin swoops in to fish the sushi out of the soy pond and sets the sopping wet mess onto the edge of Levi’s plate. “Shit. Sorry.”

“No, it’s…” Erwin starts but doesn’t seem to know how to finish his sentence, only speaking again when Levi manages to get the soaked sushi back onto his chopsticks. “You know, you don’t want to eat that.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Levi mutters, now too embarrassed to put the damn thing back down like some kind of idiot kid who’s never eaten anything except fried chicken in a restaurant in his entire life.

“No, really,” Erwin insists. “It’s going to be really salty if you–”

“It’s okay, I don’t mind,” Levi says, and he can’t for the life of him understand why he won’t just let it go.

Erwin was right, it’s really fucking salty, but Levi fights it down not to look even more like a fucking idiot; he can feel Erwin staring at him from across the table. As time ticks by in the unwavering silence, Levi can tell he’s eating as slowly as he possibly can not to be done with his meal hours before Levi himself has managed to fight all the bits of sushi into his mouth. With how nervous he is about the fucking chopsticks, Levi barely realizes he’s eating, and once his plate is finally empty he’s left with no idea whether he liked the damn things or even what the hell was in them. When Erwin asks him if he did, Levi nods along but doesn’t know what to say. They keep sitting at the table in complete silence for a few more minutes while Erwin empties his glass of water. Levi can feel the things going through his mind: the discomfort and confusion. They feel like hands wrapping around his throat and make finding something to say even more impossible.

“So…” Erwin starts, stretching out the word like he’s hoping it’s going to make up for the hour of silence that has proceeded it. “Did you want any dessert or…?”

Levi shrugs, panicking a little just from the thought of trying to eat anything else with the damn chopsticks. “I mean, if you wanted something then I don’t–”

“No, I wasn’t really…” Erwin interrupts him, pausing to run his hand across his face. “They really only have one vegan option and I’m not a big fan of it so…”

“Right,” Levi says, staring at the blob of weird spicy green paste still left on his plate for a few seconds, chewing the inside of his mouth. “What is it?”

“The vegan option?” Erwin asks, continuing when Levi nods. “It’s a cherry sorbet. But it’s a bit… artificial tasting.”

“Ah, okay,” Levi mutters.

“So did you want–”

“No, it…” Levi interrupts Erwin, shrugging. “It doesn’t really sound like something I’d like.”

“Okay,” Erwin says and the silence returns for a couple of seconds before he adds, “So should we…?”

“Yeah,” Levi agrees; Erwin raising his hand to call for the check is the biggest relief and the biggest heartbreak Levi’s ever experienced.

The way they leave the restaurant reminds Levi of a jailbreak: a little skulking but hurried dash to the car, yanking on jackets, buckling up at top speed. The drive back home continues the grave-quiet tradition they’ve established over dinner; Levi’s done trying to find something to say and lets his thoughts slip down the spiral he’s been warding off all evening. He imagines running into Erwin in the kitchen the following morning, exchanging one, awkward, painful look and having to stare at his oatmeal for the rest of all eternity.

Fuck. Fucking dumbass idea, that they could go out and it would just magically work out when everything that’s ever happened between them has been nothing but misunderstanding and discomfort.

When Erwin finally stops the car, Levi unbuckles his seatbelt but doesn’t move to get out of the car. Next to him Erwin does the same and pulls the keys out of the ignition; Levi catches him fiddling with them with his fingers. Neither of them speaks, and in the silence Levi can hear every miniscule rustle of their feet against the tiny specks of dirt and sand under the soles of their shoes.

“Shit.”

Levi looks up at the hiss of a swear, frowning when he sees Erwin pinching the bridge of his nose, a weird, crooked smile on his lips.

“This isn’t going to work out, is it?”

Levi turns back to staring at the tips of his shoes, his heart beating so fast that he starts to feel dizzy. His hands grab a squeezing hold of his knees as he bites his teeth together, fighting the urge to run out of the car and into the woods – and hell, back to the trailer park while he’s at it. Next to him Erwin lets out a heavy sigh.

“I don’t know why I thought this kind of date would be a good idea,” he says; Levi catches him rubbing his face from the corner of his eye. “I honestly don’t know if we’re weirdly past that or if we’re not there yet.”

Levi looks up, frowning and trying to understand Erwin’s words. “What do you mean past that?” he asks, drawing out another heavy sigh from the man.

“I don’t know,” he says again. “I mean, I guess technically we live together. I don’t know if it’s weird for us to go out on a date like that. Or maybe we should’ve started with something different, just spent more time together or… I don’t know.”

Levi thinks back to the restaurant, at the formal, awkward feel of it that seemed to set in even before, with trying to look nice and wear something better than the stuff they see each other wearing every single day. It felt uncomfortable to make such a fuss about it; it’s not as if Levi cares what Erwin wears, ever. He could’ve come to the restaurant in his running gear and Levi would’ve been perfectly fine with it.

Since when do guys give such a fuck about what other guys wear, anyway?

“Yeah,” he mutters, meeting Erwin’s eyes for a moment. “I guess it was a bit weird.”

“Do you feel like maybe we should…” Erwin starts, his words drifting off and ending with a short, breathy laugh. “Do you think we should try something else?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just a different kind of date, maybe,” Erwin muses, shrugging. “Or maybe not even a date, really. Like maybe we should just…”

“Hang out?” Levi finishes for him, nodding when Erwin does, suddenly releasing the breath he’s been holding. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“I’m sure there are plenty of things that we could do together that would be…”

“Less awkward?” Levi finishes for Erwin who laughs breathlessly again.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Less awkward.”

Levi nods and tries to think of something to suggest but his brain seems to be short-circuiting. Rock climbing? Bowling? Fucking… badminton?

“I mean, we don’t have to decide it _right now_ ,” Erwin says after a couple more seconds, and Levi hurries to nod.

“Yeah, later is just as good,” he emphasizes, his hand finally finding the handle of the car door. “So just let me–”

“I’ll let you know,” Erwin agrees, nodding and getting out of the car. “Or we’ll figure something out together.”

“Yeah, sure,” Levi says, closing the car door and taking a few steps backwards. “Whatever.”

He says nothing further to Erwin, not even a quick ‘good night’ before he runs upstairs to his bedroom, locking the door behind himself after catching the strip of light pushing to the hallways under Isabel’s door. He strips down to his t-shirt and underwear and throws himself down onto his bed, covering his face with his hands when he draws a deep breath.

Shit. Fucking shit. Goddamn fucking disaster.

He picks up his phone and considers calling Farlan but decides against it. What the hell would he say? Hey, I went out with Erwin and finally learned the meaning of the term silent as the grave?

“Shit,” Levi says out loud, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes for a few seconds before turning onto his stomach on the bed and burying his face in the pillow. “Fuck.”

He keeps lying in his bed for a couple of hours before getting back up, and even tries to jerk off once to make himself feel better, but as soon as he closes his eyes, he sees that damn bit of sushi floating in soy sauce like a tiny bloated corpse. He finally gives up when he starts feeling hungry instead, and walks downstairs to get a snack, relieved when instead of running into Erwin he finds Edith and Ansel at the kitchen island, chatting over bowls of granola and yoghurt.

“You’re up late,” he comments on his way to the fridge – that yoghurt and granola thing doesn’t look half bad.

“At eleven o’clock on a Saturday?” Edith says, laughing a little. “We’re not as old as you think we are, you know.”

Levi scoffs, scooping up apple jam onto his granola and yoghurt. “Must’ve been all those puzzles I’ve seen you do that threw me off.”

“I think it’s time for puzzles to make a comeback,” Ansel says. “They could be a young, hip thing, couldn’t they?”

“Yeah,” Levi replies sardonically while flicking on the electric kettle. “Just like clogs and those hand-crank phones.”

Edith and Ansel both laugh; Levi takes their good moods to mean Erwin didn’t mention anything to them about the date.

“Some young people like puzzles,” Edith consoles Ansel.

“Like who?” Levi asks her, pulling a mug out of a cupboard for his tea.

“Erwin likes puzzles,” she says, and Levi freezes for a second.

A puzzle building palooza. That’s a fucking date idea right there. Christ.

“Though I suppose he’s not really the epitome of young and hip,” Edith muses, laughing again. “I guess he’s more of a silly old hen like his parents already.”

At the counter Levi pops a teabag into his mug and shudders.

“Well, not as if I know what people my age think is cool or whatever,” he mutters, shoving a spoonful of granola and yoghurt into his mouth.

“But you do have friends, don’t you?” Edith asks, going from carefree to worried sick in two seconds flat. “You’ve got Farlan, and your friends at school.”

Levi shrugs. “I guess,” he says, “but I don’t really talk about stuff like that with them.”

“What do you talk about?” Edith asks next and Levi shrugs again.

“I don’t know,” he admits; it’s hard to sum up their scattered conversations into a single sentence. “School stuff. Wolf things. I don’t know. A lot of the time they talk and I just listen.”

Edith nods a couple of times before growing even more serious, if possible. “And what about Farlan?” she asks him hesitantly just as he turns around to pour water into his mug. “Has he talked to you about this… Flagon thing?”

Levi’s hand grips the handle of the electric kettle a little harder when he places it back down onto the counter. He grabs a spoon to stir his tea just to give himself a couple of seconds before he needs to turn around to face Edith. When he does, her worry and disapproval make him wish he could use the granola as an excuse not to answer her.

“Yeah,” he finally says, grabbing a kitchen timer to set an alarm for his tea so he doesn’t have to look her in the face. “Yeah, he’s told me about it.”

“And what do you think of it?”

Levi shrugs, stalling. “I guess it’s not how things usually go,” he says, still fiddling with the timer though he’s done setting the alarm already, “but I mean… I don’t see anything _wrong_ with it if it’s what they want to do.”

“So you think a relationship like that can work?” Edith keeps pressing, making Levi’s armpits itch uncomfortably.

Levi shrugs again. “I don’t see why not,” he says, knowing himself he sounds evasive as hell. “I mean, Farlan told me they’ve got a lot in common and they both like spending time together so… Sounds okay to me.”

Edith nods a couple of times, humming as if to herself. She doesn’t start telling Levi her opinion, and he’s more than happy to keep it that way, so he doesn’t ask. They all stay quiet until the timer starts beeping and Levi turns around to finish his tea.

“I remember back when I was younger my first college roommate had a wife nearly twice his age,” Ansel suddenly speaks up, scraping the last of the yoghurt out of his bowl. “I only ever met her once, but you couldn’t have found a more devoted couple. Really opened my eyes to how all love is just love, at the end of the day.”

“What if it had been the other way around?” Edith asks him. “What if you had known a college-aged girl – say an eighteen-year-old – who was married to a man nearly in his forties?”

“If they’d behaved like this couple I knew did, I don’t think I would’ve had a problem with it,” Ansel tells her, but she shakes her head.

“No,” she says, putting down her bowl and spoon in a way that looks too determined to Levi. “I’m sorry but I don’t believe that. I think if Farlan were a girl, we would all be a little bit worried – and with good reason.”

“Even though it’s Flagon?” Ansel asks her back. “A man we’ve both known for longer than a decade? A man I made my beta before Erwin – and with good reason.”

Edith pauses for a moment, like considering Ansel’s words, and then shakes her head again.

“Flagon or not,” she insists, getting up and gathering the bowls and spoons off the kitchen island, “I know if Isabel started dating someone his age when she’s eighteen, I’d have misgivings about it, and I don’t think Farlan being a boy makes a difference.”

“I’d understand the misgivings if it were some man we don’t know,” Ansel counters, frowning, “but I trust Flagon, for what it’s worth. And I don’t believe for a second that he would be taking advantage or manipulating someone into–”

“He talked you into letting him join the pack,” Edith says, as if to remind Ansel. “It’s not as if he had many credentials to speak of, and you made him your beta in less than–”

“I wouldn’t characterize what happened as Flagon _talking me into_ anything,” Ansel interrupts her, sounding cold enough to make Levi shudder. “I’d like to think my opinion isn’t swayed as easily as that.”

Edith stares at him mutely from over by the dishwasher for a few seconds before shrugging jerkily.

“Whatever you say,” she states a little snappily. “It’s not surprising to me that we see this differently.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because you’re a man, and you can’t understand what the world is like for women,” Edith says, folding her arms over her chest when Ansel sighs heavily. “Don’t fight me on this, Ansel. You know I’m right on this, and you know the world isn’t as safe for young girls as it is for young boys, and you know whose fault that is.”

Levi watches Ansel and picks up on his mood shifting even before his posture relaxes and he pushes himself up from his seat to cross the room over to Edith. Once he gets to her, he pulls her crossed arms apart and moves closer to place a quick kiss on her forehead. From beyond the crunching of the granola between his teeth, Levi can just hear him whispering ‘I know’ – magic words that seem to calm her down in an instant.

“Keep an eye on Farlan, won’t you?” she asks Levi, who flinches almost badly enough to spill his tea. “Just make sure he’s alright?”

“Yeah,” he promises, feeling his ears growing hot. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

Back in his room, Levi lies awake and tries to keep himself from thinking about everything Edith said. It doesn’t surprise him that she’s not happy about the Farlan and Flagon situation, and he’s not expecting her to have a better attitude about him and Erwin either – more like he’s expecting it to be a lot worse. And if they keep doing whatever the hell they’re doing, it’s not as if she won’t find out eventually. Just the thought of it makes Levi bury his face into his pillow again.

The following morning he dawdles, lying in bed until most of the breakfast rush is over and his stomach is twisting with hunger on the off chance that he’ll manage to avoid Erwin during breakfast. He’s safe for the most of it, but just as he’s emptying the last drops of tea out of his cup, the man walks in to get a refill on his coffee. Their eyes lock for a few seconds before Levi turns away; he doesn’t look back up even when he hears Erwin wishing him a quiet good morning.

“You okay?” he asks Levi when he walks over to the dishwasher to place his dishes into it.

Levi nods and grunts. “You?” he asks back, glancing up just long enough to see Erwin nodding.

“Any ideas yet?”

Levi shudders at the tingling of the scar on his neck and shakes his head. “You?” he asks again.

“Not really,” Erwin replies, screwing the lid back onto his keep-warm cup. “I guess we’ll just… keep thinking.”

“Yeah,” Levi agrees, escaping the situation back to his room where he calls Farlan to ask him to come over – he doesn’t bother asking why it only takes Farlan five minutes to get over to the house.

“Did you know everyone here knows about the thing with you and Flagon?” Levi asks him once they’re lounging on his bed with glasses of iced tea that Edith has practically forced into their hands.

“Yeah?” Farlan asks, barely looking up from his phone. “So?”

“That doesn’t bother you?” Levi asks him, not surprised when the response he gets is a raised eyebrow and a shrug.

“Should it?”

Levi shrugs. “It doesn’t bother you that people know you’re–”

“Dating a guy I actually like and who likes me?” Farlan finishes for him and shakes his head. “Honestly? People can think whatever they want about it, I don’t really care.”

“So you’ve told your parents?”

Farlan’s finger pauses on the phone screen and he looks at Levi over the rim of his glass. The silence that follows answers the question for him.

“It’s not like I’m really keeping it a secret,” Farlan explains feebly. “They know I’m seeing someone. They just… don’t know who he is yet.”

“And they don’t know he’s like twice your age,” Levi concludes, laughing when Farlan sighs. “But they’re okay with you dating someone?”

Farlan shrugs. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

“They don’t think you’re too young or…” Levi starts, shrugging too. “I don’t know. Have a problem with the gay thing?”

“The gay thing?” Farlan repeats, rolling his eyes when Levi nods. “Jesus. It’s the 21st century and they weren’t raised in a cave you know. If they’re not okay with it then they better learn to be okay with it, and fast. Or else I’m moving here, getting myself adopted like you.”

“I’m not adopted,” Levi corrects him quickly, shuddering.

“Yeah, but you know what I mean,” Farlan says, eyes still on his phone. “I’d probably be able to afford my own place now anyway if they had a problem with it.”

“Aren’t you kind of young to be living on your own?” Levi asks, thinking of his own runaway moment in the motel.

“Well I’ll be doing it anyway in a year or two when I go off to college,” Farlan argues, shrugging. “I don’t see what’s so shocking about it.”

Levi exhales heavily and flops down on the bed next to Farlan; he smells weird now that he’s cut back on all the products he uses.

“So how’s it going?” he asks, staring up at the ceiling. “The thing with you and Flagon?”

Farlan puts his phone onto the bed and lies down next to Levi, stretching out his arms and yawning.

“I think it’s going good,” he says; Levi can hear the smile in his voice. “I’ve spent a couple nights at his place and we’ve been on a bunch of dates.”

“What kind of dates?”

Farlan shrugs. “We’ve been to a couple restaurants and we’ve seen a few movies and stuff like that,” he says, “and we’ve had a couple of nights in when we’ve ordered food and watched stuff on Netflix. Things like that.”

“And all of that’s been fine?” Levi asks, feeling Farlan’s eyes on him but not looking at him. “Like you’ve had a good time and–”

“Yeah, we’ve had a really good time,” he says, falling quiet for a few seconds before adding, “and the sex is good too, you know.”

Levi hovers for a moment between encouraging Farlan to keep talking, and not wanting to know anything more about it. In the end he settles for a quick “yeah?” – it’s not as if Farlan’s got anyone else to talk to about it either.

“I mean, you know I don’t have a lot of experience or anything,” he starts and Levi catches a hint of discomfort from him. “But he’s never been with a guy before either, so we’re both kind of… learning, I guess. It’s nice.”

“He’s never been with a guy before?” Levi asks, frowning when Farlan shakes his head; the conversation he had with Erwin about Grindr pops into his head and the memory makes the scar on his neck heat up. “And that doesn’t bother you?”

Farlan shrugs again. “Why would it?”

Levi considers the question, then shrugs as well. “I don’t know,” he admits.

“I don’t think it means he likes me any less,” Farlan says and yawns. “It’s not as if he’s lying about having a good time.”

“How can you be sure though?”

Farlan fixes Levi with a long stare, only looking away when Levi laughs awkwardly.

“So you’ve never had a bad date with him?” he asks Farlan, cringing when the image of the sushi restaurant flashes through his mind. “Where it was just really awkward and you didn’t know what to say?”

“Is this about his age again?” Farlan asks and Levi shakes his head.

“No,” he counters, frowning. “Just… you’ve never had that with him?”

Farlan pauses to think. “Maybe a little bit on the first date,” he finally answers. “For like the first five minutes.”

“Right,” Levi mutters, drawing a deep breath before blurting out, “I went out with Erwin last night.”

The following silence is full of Farlan’s confusion. Levi feels his heart thumping in his chest.

“On like… a date?” he finally asks, ever more confused when Levi nods. “Uhh… Okay? Do you like him or something?”

Levi frowns and looks over at Farlan. “Well… yeah,” he finally says. “Didn’t I tell you that?”

“No?” Farlan says, laughing. “How long’s it been going on?”

“I don’t know,” Levi says, trying to think back and shuddering at the thought of running through the woods, Erwin’s growling chasing him past the trees. “A while.”

“And he likes you too?”

Levi shrugs. “He asked me out so I guess,” he says, frowning when Farlan laughs. “What?”

“Just… you,” he voices, shaking his head. “’Didn’t I tell you about that?’ Honest to fucking god.”

“What?” Levi asks again and Farlan laughs even louder.

“Just that I feel like I missed a couple of key lessons trying to raise you to be a proper human being,” Farlan tells him, sighing. “Like how to share stuff about your life with your friends.”

“I do share,” Levi argues but Farlan shakes his head.

“You keep a lot of stuff to yourself,” he counters, picking up his phone again. “I always figured it was because there was a lot you didn’t want to talk about so I left it be. But now I feel like maybe you should try and learn some of that.”

Levi thinks about Farlan’s words but doesn’t know what to say. It sounds like a pretty solid analysis – it’s true he was never big on explaining what went down in the trailer park, and for most of their friendship has been the one who listens rather than the one who speaks. Of course there’s also the wolf thing which has always helped make lying easy and necessary. He never thought it would start slipping over to other things, but somehow he’s not surprised it has.

“So Erwin asked _you_ out?” Farlan asks; the slight emphasis on the ‘you’ makes Levi groan.

“Yeah, I don’t get it either,” he mutters, looking up when Farlan slaps him on the arm.

“Don’t do that,” he says firmly, going on after Levi has sighed heavily. “How was it?”

“Honestly?” he says, rubbing the space between his eyebrows with his thumb. “Fucking terrible.”

“How come?”

“He took me to a sushi place,” Levi starts, “and I was an idiot and didn’t know how to use the fucking chopsticks. We literally just sat there for an hour without saying anything to each other.”

“That’s a weird place for a first date,” Farlan comments, glancing up from his phone. “Sushi can be really polarizing. _I_ wouldn’t take someone there on a first date.”

“Right?” Levi agrees, rubbing his face when a fresh wave of embarrassment hits him.

“So why did you sit there without saying anything?” Farlan asks him and Levi huffs impatiently.

“I couldn’t think of a single fucking thing to say to him,” he explains, exasperated. “And apparently neither could he.”

Farlan hums for a moment, brows knitted over his eyes and finally asks, “So how did you leave it?”

“He more or less said it wasn’t a great date,” Levi tells him, “and that we should try doing something else.”

Farlan nods. “That’s what I would do,” he says, switching off his phone and placing it back on the bed. “I mean, it’s not as if the problem was that you didn’t like each other. Right?”

“Right.”

“You just need to… I don’t know, get to know each other a bit better?” he suggests, pushing himself up on the bed. “Or maybe you should go on a date where you actually _do_ something. That might get the pressure off the talking and everything, if that’s not what you’re good at.”

“Maybe,” Levi agrees, sighing and rubbing the scar on his neck.

 

After Farlan leaves, Levi contemplates running back upstairs to his room, but in the end lets himself be lured into the living room by the cool glow of the television set. He finds Ansel sitting on the sofa, watching some sort of cooking show with what seems to Levi to be an unnatural level of commitment. The old man’s only companions in the room are a bowl of chips paired with salsa and guacamole that pull Levi over to the couch.

“Some quality time?” he asks Ansel, sitting down next to him and grabbing a few chips and guac.

“I haven’t had time to watch these,” Ansel tells him, eyes glued to the screen. “My favorite is on the cusp of getting to the semi-finals.”

Levi laughs breathily but settles further onto the couch with the snack bowls. On the tv something dramatic is happening over what looks like a leg of lamb that someone’s pulling out of the oven.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” Levi asks when the contestant on the screen cuts into the meat.

“It does feel very wasteful at times,” Ansel admits and sighs. “Sometimes they’ll cook portions that will never get eaten or tasted, even. And that does bother me, that an animal had to die and for it to all go to waste.”

“Not that they’d be any happier about getting eaten, probably,” Levi comments and Ansel sighs again.

“No, probably not,” he agrees, reaching over to the bowl for a chip and some salsa. “I guess you could call it a guilty pleasure.”

Levi’s not sure why he stays watching tv with Ansel – the old man’s got a good dozen episodes recorded – or why he doesn’t find the program boring as shit. A lot of the drama about the cooking goes way over his head, even when it seems to make perfect sense to Ansel, who keeps up a lively commentary, pointing out the mistakes the contestants make even before they notice them themselves. Halfway through the third episode Edith appears in the doorway and glances disapprovingly at the screen before addressing Levi.

“Isabel and I are going to go work in the garden,” she tells him over the noise. “Why don’t you come with.”

Levi barely glances away from the show – one of the home cooks is running out of time plating her meal – and as soon as he does, the judgmental tone of her voice when she talked about Farlan and Flagon drifts back to his ears. He grits his teeth for a moment.

“Thanks but I’m good,” he says, focusing on the screen when he feels her worry.

“Are you sure?” she insists. “It wouldn’t be the worst thing for you to get some fresh air.”

“I’ll go for a run later,” he mutters; it takes her a couple of seconds to give up and leave the room.

“Don’t mind her,” Ansel whispers, nudging Levi with his elbow. “She’ll ease up on the fussing, given time.”

“Sure,” Levi mutters, scraping the last of the salsa out of the bowl. “Is there any more of this?”

“Top cupboard in the pantry, next to the window.”

Levi finds the little jar quickly but before he can exit the pantry, he catches Erwin’s voice in the kitchen. He’s talking to someone – Mike, Levi realizes after a few seconds when he hears the man responding to something Erwin has said. He catches his own name and his breath hitches in his throat as he shuffles closer to the door, all the awkwardness and embarrassment stopping him on his tracks.

“I don’t know what the hell is up with me,” Erwin says quietly, like he’s trying to keep anyone except Mike from hearing him. “I honestly feel like it shouldn’t be this hard. It’s not as if I haven’t done this before.”

“Well,” Mike replies, his voice low and quiet too, “you’ve never done it with someone like him before.”

“I know, but he’s just a… person,” Erwin argues; Levi can hear him fiddling with the coffeemaker. “I don’t know what it is about him that makes me so damn stupid.”

“Stupid how?”

“I don’t know,” Erwin huffs and groans. “It’s like I’m overthinking things to the point where I’m not even thinking about them anymore. I mean, sushi? With Levi? What the hell was I thinking?”

Levi can hear Mike laughing; the sound is followed by an apology a few seconds later.

“I see what you mean,” Mike says and even in his hiding spot Levi can hear Erwin’s heavy sigh. “It probably shouldn’t be that hard.”

“Right?” Erwin replies, already lowering his voice when he walks past the pantry towards the door. “I feel like I should get some kind of a grip, but I just don’t know…”

The door swinging shut obscures the rest of his words, and Levi re-enters the kitchen, glancing after the two men but not following them. Instead he rejoins Ansel in the living room and tries to bring his focus back on the show. It’s a losing battle; he spends a few more hours gorging on the snacks before changing into sweatpants and a hoodie and escaping into the woods with the dogs. Even their company doesn’t ease the discomfort and tension he’s feeling.

His uneasy mood carries over to the next week, and coupled with the lingering awkwardness with Erwin makes him restless and short-tempered. At this point he’d be fine just having what they had before. When he lies in bed at night, he thinks back to the long hours they spent working in Erwin’s office, to the laughs they had over Erwin’s jokes, to the confessions they made that night at the motel, and in his thoughts it all seems easy; but when morning comes, the kitchen of the house seems suddenly no different from the sushi place, and all the easy conversations he dreamed of the night before turn into grunts and wordless nods.

By the end of the week Levi notices his focus slipping during lessons, his thoughts always turning to Erwin and any plans he can come up with to turn the awkward greetings they keep exchanging over meals into something else. He grows withdrawn and quiet around the other werewolves and painfully annoyed with everyone else, most of all with Lovof, who continues to be a fucking dictionary definition of an entitled snotty brat whose dad should’ve smacked him over the head once or twice when he was growing up. Levi’s frayed nerves finally snap during homeroom on Friday when the asshole won’t stop yapping about his new car to a couple of supremely disinterested girls.

“Can you just shut the fuck up for once in your life?” Levi snaps at him. “No one gives a shit. How are you still not getting that?”

Lovof stands up from his seat and takes a couple of steps towards Levi in a clear attempt at being intimidating.

“Are you talking to me?” he asks, but before Levi can reply, the teacher swoops in to calm the situation down. Levi still catches him muttering, “I’ll show you, you fucking midget.”

Levi’s mood doesn’t show signs of improving later in the day and when he drives himself and Isabel back home from school, the sight of Hange and Moblit’s hippie van in front of the house makes him groan.

“What’s up with you?” Isabel asks grumpily.

“Nothing,” Levi mutters, cringing even worse when the scents of Nile and Marie greet him at the door.

They’re all huddled in the living room around Marie’s enormous belly, Hange on their knees in front of her, doing some sort of examination that involves a stethoscope and a measuring tape. Edith is beaming; Levi feels her happiness all the way from the doorway. The sight of Nile and Marie nuzzling against each other’s necks makes Levi’s skin crawl and sets his teeth even further on edge.

“Everything seems to be going to plan!” Hange declares, rolling up the tape measure and grinning. “That’s a strong little pup you’ve got growing in there!”

“Sorry to have to bother you with this again Hange,” Marie says, shifting on the sofa in a way that looks harder than it should be. “You know I’m just a little nervous about–”

“No need to apologize Marie!” Hange interrupts her excitedly. “You know it’s good for Mob and me to get out of the lab sometimes.”

“And it’s so good for us to get to see you two!” Edith exclaims, hugging Moblit onto her side for a few seconds. “You’ll be staying for dinner, I hope?”

“Sure, Mama,” he mutters meekly, and it’s only then that Levi notices it.

“Where’s Erwin?” he asks, drawing everyone’s eyes to himself.

“He took the dogs out for a walk,” Edith tells him, turning instantly back to Nile and Marie. “So, have you decided on the color for the nursery yet?”

Levi turns on his heels and walks into the kitchen. He opens the door of the fridge and peers inside, but suddenly the aching feeling inside him doesn’t feel like hunger anymore. He turns around and leans onto the fridge, folding his arms over his chest and exhaling hard.

Fucking back-and-forth bullshit. It shouldn’t be this hard to spend a goddamn afternoon with someone.

Without wasting another second, Levi gets moving. He walks back into the mudroom and laces up his tennis shoes, grabbing his helmet off the top shelf and running out the door. He marches over to his dirt bike and jumps on it, speeding along the trail fast enough to make the bike jump on the bumps and potholes. He holds on for dear life, shifting up a gear and gritting his teeth. He hits the breaks as soon as he catches a glimpse of Erwin’s olive green parka against the blue of the lake, jumping off the bike almost before it has stopped.

“Levi,” Erwin says, watching Levi stomping across the grass. “What are you–”

“Shut up,” Levi snaps, throwing his helmet on the ground.

He crosses over to Erwin in a run, closes a handful of the man’s parka into his fist and pulls him down, meeting his lips angrily with his own. The kiss breaks too soon, interrupted by Erwin’s surprised inhale that Levi smothers with another kiss a second later. He can smell Erwin’s astonishment that turns into want and heat as the kiss deepens; Levi’s hold on the front of his parka grows slack when Erwin’s arms wrap around his waist, his hands pulling Levi closer, towards his scent. Levi can feel a fluttering in the pit of his stomach, a twisting tightness that bars his breath and makes him feel dizzy. When they finally break apart, he meets Erwin’s gaze, unwavering.

“How’s that for a fucking start?”


	4. Chapter 4

The air around the bike is full of the smell of Erwin’s apprehension when he sits down on the seat, barely pressing his ass against the leather. Levi didn’t think he would make the bike look as small as he does, but there’s something about his long legs and the thick thighs that wrap around the metal that makes Levi wonder if he doesn’t look like a midget after all himself, riding the thing. He steps closer and catches another whiff of Erwin’s nerves.

“Relax,” he tells the man, laughing. “You’re gonna be fine. Promise.”

Erwin lets out a strained chuckle and takes a hold of the handlebars only to let go a second later. In a flash Levi remembers his first days at the pack, how distant and commanding Erwin seemed then; a fucking alpha if Levi ever saw one. The nervous wreck straddling his dirt bike seems like a completely different person. More human, definitely, and Levi likes this one better.

“We’ll go over the parts first so you won’t fly off or anything when we start this thing,” he says, stepping next to Erwin to get a better view of the controls. He pulls on Erwin’s left pantleg to get his foot up on the peg, pointing out the metal part above his toes. “This is the gear shift.” He nudges Erwin’s foot upwards a little bit to shift it. “We’ll put it on neutral for now.”

“Okay,” Erwin says and laughs, a little nervously still, when Levi stands up and circles around the bike to point out the kickstart and the brake.

“That’s all the foot stuff,” he says, stepping up to the handlebars. “You have your clutch on the left and your throttle and your front brake on your right. But do not touch the front brake.”

“Alright,” Erwin agrees, testing the clutch a few times by pulling it in. “Why?”

“Because you don’t know how to work it yet and you’ll flip the bike over its front if you try,” Levi explains. “I’d lay off the throttle to start with too.”

“So just the clutch and–”

“Yeah, just the clutch,” Levi says, “Just pull it in with two fingers, like this. We’ll start with you releasing it nice and slow so you’ll figure out what makes the bike move.”

“Alright,” Erwin states, clearly trying to sound more confident. “So I’ll just pull it in and–”

“Yeah, just wait a second,” Levi instructs, folding out the kickstart and showing Erwin how to step on it. When the bike roars to life, Levi tells Erwin to pull in the clutch and shows him how to shift down into first gear with his foot. “Now just release the clutch nice and slow.”

“Nice and slow,” Erwin repeats, his concentration clear on his face when he starts easing his hold; Levi catches him flinching when the bike starts inching forward and he laughs.

“Just pull the clutch in again if you want to–”

“Yeah, I got it,” Erwin says, squeezing the clutch again with his fingers before releasing it just as slowly as before.

Levi walks behind him, catching up easily with the slow pace he’s keeping. When Erwin stops, Levi can’t help smirking at the thumping of his heart he can hear beyond the roar of the engine.

“Ready to add some speed?” he asks the man who sighs.

“Do I have to?” he asks back, making Levi frown through his smile.

“What was the point of us doing this?”

Erwin sighs again. “For me to ride a dirt bike,” he says reluctantly.

“And do you feel like you’ve done that?” Levi asks, smirking when Erwin looks away.

“No,” he admits in a tone of utter resignation. “So the throttle?”

It takes Erwin several tries to learn how to get the bike moving without the engine cutting off when he releases the clutch in full, and he never makes it past second gear. The hesitation is clear in the way he rides, in how much he slows down before turning the bike around to speed back across the open green by the woods. Despite the laughable crawl Erwin’s moving at, Levi takes pity on him when he sees the painful-looking trembling of his legs. The sheen of sweat on Erwin’s brow seems out of place in the cool autumn weather that nips at Levi’s bare hands when he grabs the handlebars of the bike to let Erwin take a couple of grounding steps away from it.

“So you loved it right?” Levi asks, laughing when Erwin casts a wary look in his direction. “What’s up with that? Don’t you like having fun?”

“I do like having fun,” Erwin argues, still catching his breath. “I’m just not crazy about risking my life while doing it.”

“There’s like a .1% chance you’d die riding this,” Levi insists and laughs. “I’ve flipped it over myself like fifty times and the worst I ever got was a broken wrist, and it healed in like a day.”

“Death traps,” Erwin mutters, shaking his head when they start walking back toward the house. “Statistically speaking–”

“You’ve got statistics on how many werewolves have died in motorbike crashes?” Levi asks, laughing when Erwin opens his mouth and then closes it just as quickly. “In a couple of years I’m going to buy a real bike.”

“Is the hybrid not cool enough for you?” Erwin asks and laughs when Levi grimaces.

“It’s not even about being cool,” he explains after a moment. “I like bikes. You can feel the speed on a bike in a way you can’t in a car.”

“And what is it about speed that you like?”

Levi shrugs. “I don’t know,” he admits, steering the bike past a pothole on the ground. “Gets your blood pumping I guess.”

“It does do that,” Erwin says, and Levi laughs when he sees him rubbing his chest a little uncomfortably. “Oh, come on.”

“What?” Levi asks innocently, grinning when he sees Erwin’s unimpressed stare.

“You could cut me a little slack,” he argues and Levi shoves him on his arm while they walk. “It was my first time.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” he agrees, nodding, his face growing hot from the words. “You weren’t half bad.”

“Well thank you,” Erwin says and chuckles. “That’s very high praise coming from you.”

Levi feels the scar on his neck tingling and he rubs it with his hand, the heat on his face creeping up to his ears when he hears the deep breath Erwin draws next to him. The conversation dwindles, but it doesn’t send Levi into a panic anymore. He watches Erwin from the corner of his eye and feels his heart filling when he sees the soft smile on Erwin’s lips, the way he looks up at the clear, pale blue of the sky like he loves every second of this morning. Their shared contentedness hangs in the air and seems to wrap itself around Levi like a quilt, tugging at the corners of his mouth and filling his lungs with fragrant scents: dew-laden grass, slow-thawing earth, hints of frost in the deep shadows under the trees.

“This would be a perfect day for a hunt,” Erwin says and Levi hums in agreement.

“I love hunting in the fall the most,” he states, straining as he pushes the dirt bike up a gentle slope. “Do you know when the next one’s going to be?”

“We’ll have at least one before the whole pack comes over for Thanksgiving,” Erwin muses, giving Levi a hand with the bike though he doesn’t ask for help. “I’ve still got to count the game. I haven’t even tested the new drone yet.”

“How come?”

“I wasted a lot of time trying to find a solar-powered one at a reasonable price, but couldn’t,” Erwin explains, wiping his hands on his trousers. “I only gave up a week ago and settled on something else.”

“Sorry about Kenny blasting the first one out of the sky,” Levi says, remembering the quiet crunch the drone made when it landed on the muddy ground of the trailer park. When Erwin laughs, Levi lets himself relax.

“I got a bit careless,” Erwin admits, rubbing the back of his head. “Based on his first few attempts, I was sure he’d keep missing.”

“Lucky shot,” Levi says and shrugs. “He’s as good as blind before his morning beer.”

Erwin stays quiet for a moment and Levi can feel his apprehension, the way he’s weighing things in his mind; to speak or not to speak, what to say, how to phrase it; is he overstepping, are they there yet, is it even polite.

“Did he drink a lot?” he finally asks, his voice low and careful. “Your uncle.”

Levi casts a wary glance in Erwin’s direction and hesitates. It doesn’t feel good or easy to talk about the trailer park, about Kenny or the things that happened. The words feel too harsh and ugly, and the memories don’t seem to belong here under the pale, clear sky. It doesn’t feel fair to talk about Kenny and all the bad he’s ever done when no one’s ever going to ask about the things he’s done right, and Levi’s never going to start talking about it either.

“I guess,” Levi finally says evasively without looking at Erwin. “He always said he didn’t drink nearly as much as his old man though, so I guess it just depends on what you’re comparing it to.”

“Did he drink every day?”

“No, not every day,” Levi hurries to say, wincing a little because he knows how close to a lie the statement is. “He could go without a drink if he wanted to, and he wasn’t drunk a lot. It took a lot to get him drunk and usually he didn’t drink that much. And he never touched the other stuff.”

“What was the other stuff?” Erwin asks and Levi flinches.

“Nothing,” he says, glancing at Erwin and shaking his head. “Don’t ask.”

“Alright,” Erwin says; the compassion in his voice makes Levi shudder. “I won’t ask.”

They fall quiet again, and Levi can feel all of Erwin’s curiosity in the silence. It follows them all the way to the house like a third wheel, disappearing only when they run into Mike, Nan and Nile over by the garage. They’re bustling around a weird structure, like an adult-sized paddling pool with wooden edges and a lining of blue plastic on the inside. Levi’s seen it in the garage when he’s gone in to get his bike during the past month.

“You’re bringing it out already?” Erwin calls out to Nile while Levi squeezes past the tank to get his bike to the garage.

“Marie says it’s time,” Nile replies, “and whatever Marie says, I do.”

“Good man,” Nan joins in, slapping Levi on the shoulder when she walks past. “Plus you want to make sure it doesn’t leak.”

“Yeah,” Nile agrees, laughing a little. “We don’t want that on D-Day.”

“You getting nervous?” Mike asks and Levi’s surprised when Nile shakes his head.

“Ask me again in a week,” he says and laughs again, grunting when him and Mike hoist the pool onto the back of the pickup. “I don’t think it’s going to feel real until then.”

“Just remember we’re all here if you need anything,” Erwin says, laying his hand on Nile’s shoulder; Levi thinks he catches a moment of hesitation before the contact. “And if mom starts getting out of hand hanging out at the house, just let me know and I’ll make sure she backs off a little.”

“Thanks,” Nile says, “but I don’t think either one of us will be complaining when the baby comes. We’ll need all the help we can get.”

“Well that’s what we’re all here for,” Nan puts in, hugging herself onto Mike. “I can’t promise I’ll cook, but I’ll order you some take-away and do the baby-proofing when the little terror starts walking.”

“Thanks Nan,” Nile says, smiling and wiping his forehead. “Appreciate it.”

“You two been in the woods today?” Mike suddenly asks Erwin and Levi, turning to them in between fixing the pool onto the truck with rope.

“I’ve been thinking I’d give the kids rides on my bike on Thanksgiving,” Levi lies at once, leaning onto the side of the building, “and nervous nelly over here wanted to test it for himself to see if it’s safe.”

“You rode the dirt bike?” Nan asks, cackling when Erwin nods and turning to Levi. “How’d he do?”

“Almost made it to third gear,” Levi says and Nan cackles some more.

“Speedy Gonzales!” she exclaims, earning an unimpressed look from Erwin. “Didn’t I always tell you they’re perfectly safe?”

“I wouldn’t say today convinced me,” Erwin muses, starting to walk towards the front porch. “I’ll need to give it some more thought.”

“You know the pups would love it,” Levi comments though he doesn’t need to add to the lie, slouching after the man, “and they’d leave the rest of you alone for a minute.”

“There’s an idea,” Nan mutters, shaking her head when Erwin asks her if they need any help with the tank. “Just go rest your nerves, gramps.”

“Thanks,” Erwin drawls, walking up to the house with Levi on his heels. He turns around in the mudroom, shrugging out of his parka to ask, “Did you really think about that?”

“The thing with the pups?” Levi clarifies, nodding when Erwin does. “I think they’d like that.”

“Don’t say anything to them about it yet,” Erwin says. “I need to think about it, and I don’t want them to get excited until I’ve made up my mind.”

“Sure,” Levi agrees, “but it’s really not dangerous. I’m fucking great on the bike, and I wouldn’t go too fast.”

“I know,” Erwin assures him, scratching the back of his head, “but I need to think about it, bring it up with the others.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Levi tells him, pulling off his tennis shoes and changing into slippers. “Just let me know what you decide.”

“I will,” Erwin promises, stretching his back and yawning when he follows Levi into the kitchen. “Big plans for the rest of the day?”

Levi shrugs. “I’ve got a project I’m working on for school,” he explains quickly. “It’s not due until December but I want to get started on it now.”

“What kind of project?”

“It’s like an independent research thing for my US history class,” Levi says, filling the electric kettle and reaching into the cupboard for tea. “We all had to pick a subject and we’ll do research and write a paper on it.”

“What subject did you choose?” Erwin asks, sniffing the old coffee in the pot before pouring it into the sink.

“I chose the Vietnam war,” Levi tells him. “I watched a cool movie about that once. It was some fucked up shit though.”

“Are you enjoying it?” Erwin asks, measuring coffee into the coffee maker, smiling when Levi nods. “If you ever need any help with it or anything, just let me know. It can be hard to know which sources online are credible and which aren’t.”

“Yeah, the teacher warned us about that,” Levi remembers, adding some loose-leaf tea into a strainer. “I don’t think the movie I saw counts as a good source.”

“Probably not,” Erwin agrees, laughing.

“You got plans?” Levi thinks to ask him – always such a rude shit, not asking.

“Work,” Erwin says and sighs, stretching his arms above his head. “No rest for the wicked.”

“Have you ever even done anything wrong in your life?” Levi asks, flinching when the room fills with tension at the moment when they both remember. For a few seconds they avoid each other’s eyes, then Levi groans. “Fuck. Just… forget I said that.”

“Deal,” Erwin agrees, grimacing when Levi does and shifting on his feet a little uneasily. “We can… get back to that some other time.”

“Yeah,” Levi agrees, turning to pour water into his mug. “I mean, if we even have to.”

“You don’t feel like you–”

“Not really,” Levi blurts out, turning around but not looking at Erwin. “I mean, I think we’ve talked about it enough. For me at least.”

Erwin nods a little hesitantly, pulling a mug out of the dishwasher and fiddling with it. Levi senses the questions he has and knows when he chooses to ignore them too; it’s written in the way his posture shifts, how he unclenches his jaw and breathes out, like he’s letting go of something.

“You gonna do the lunch prep today?” he asks the man to change the subject; the words seem to nudge him out of his thoughts.

“Only if you can’t manage without me,” he admits. “I’ve got a lot to catch up on at the office.”

Levi nods along, stirring his tea. “Guess I’ll see you at lunch then,” he says; for a few seconds he wonders if he should cross the kitchen to kiss Erwin, but even the idea feels weird and awkward, and he stays rooted to the spot.

“Guess so,” Erwin says and smiles, and Levi wonders if he’s thinking about it too. “I hope you enjoy your project.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Levi mutters, feeling the embarrassment seeping into his voice. “Hope you enjoy your… job.”

Erwin laughs a little and pours coffee into his mug though it hasn’t finished dripping into the pot yet.

“I’ll do my best,” he says, giving Levi one more smile before leaving the room. “See you at lunch.”

When he’s left alone, Levi rolls his eyes at his own stupidity before finishing up with his tea and carrying it upstairs to his room. He glances longingly at his bed and considers having a quick wank before getting to work, but in the end he sits down at his desk and pulls the laptop closer, starting on his research instead. He stays on the project until lunch and continues with his school work even afterwards, stopping only when Edith calls him downstairs for dinner.

“You’ve been busy today, little one,” she comments, giving him a one-armed hug in passing when he’s making his way to the table.

“School,” Levi comments, already sitting down and tearing into a slice of bread.

“Remember to take a couple of breaks every once in a while,” Edith tells him gently. “And open a window. Fresh air makes you think better.”

“Thanks.” Levi barely empties his mouth between soundbites. “I think I’m done for the day though.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Edith agrees, passing the basket of bread down the table. “It’s always good to use some time during the weekend just to relax. You could come for a walk with me and Ansel if you’d like.”

“Thanks,” Levi says again, “but I think I’m just going to hang out in my room or whatever.”

“Alright,” Edith tells him, laughing. “You know, Erwin was just like you at your age. Always cooped up indoors with a book. I can’t believe he’s going to be twenty-nine in a week, it feels like he was starting high school just yesterday!”

Levi scoffs, but doesn’t say a word. He pictures it in his mind: Erwin ten years ago, in basketball shorts and a baggy t-shirt lying in bed with a book open on his chest – some sci-fi thing or something – one finger lazily circling his lips while he reads, a strand of hair falling over his forehead. In the image in Levi’s mind, the hand Erwin has resting near his face starts a slow, meandering descent across his chest, over his abdomen, down towards the swelling Levi can see forming on the front of his shorts, straining the loose fabric where his fingers are slowly creeping past the strip of bare skin above the waistband of his–

“Levi dear, could you pass me the avocado?”

He snaps out of his thoughts and crosses his legs discreetly under the table, passing Edith the small bowl of avocado slices without looking at her. He finishes his dinner as fast as he can, escaping to the upstairs bathroom to beat off to that thought of Erwin; halfway through he realizes – hazily, like it’s an afterthought – that the Erwin in his mind is all grown up and the basketball shorts have turned into those tight running pants he wears. The fabric squeezes his thighs when he pushes it down to reveal his erection; after Levi finishes washing up, he wonders if he exaggerated its size in his mind again.

The image interrupts him several times during the hours he spends in his room reading, but he keeps his hands from acting on it, savoring the feeling building up in the pit of his stomach; but before he can do anything about it, a quiet knocking on his door scatters his thoughts and has him sitting up straighter in the bed.

“What’s up?” he asks Isabel who peers into the room through a crack in the door. “You okay?”

She nods and steps further in, sighing and folding her arms over her chest, obscuring the logo of some soccer team she has on her worn and torn t-shirt.  

“What is it?” Levi asks her again and she shrugs sullenly.

“Just…” she starts, shrugging again but then unfolding her arms and crossing her hands loosely. “Can I sleep here tonight?”

Levi feels his brows nudging upwards but he nods. “Sure,” he tells the girl, who disappears behind the door for a second before returning with a duvet and a pillow. “You came prepared.”

“As if you’d say no,” Isabel tells him, climbing in next to Levi and setting her pillow down at the foot of the bed. “What are you doing?”

“Just reading,” Levi says, showing her the book. “It’s for school.”

She nods, but doesn’t ask him anything more about it, already settling down under the covers, her cold feet pressing against Levi’s forearm.

“So what’s with all this?” Levi asks her, feeling her shrug against his legs.

“Just not used to sleeping alone,” Isabel explains quietly. “We always slept in a puppy pile back at the pup house.”

“Every night?” Levi asks, shuddering a little when Isabel nods.

“It makes us feel safe,” she says, yawning. “It gets so cozy and nice and warm, and you always know there’s someone watching over you.”

Levi thinks about Isabel’s words but doesn’t recognize the feeling she’s talking about. He doesn’t remember anything like it from the trailer park, if not the mornings he woke up next to his mom – but those memories are hazy and feel like nothing now, so distant they seem to have happened to someone else.

“You can keep reading if you want,” Isabel says sleepily, yawning again. “The pups always had nightlights so the lamp doesn’t bother me.”

“You’re going to sleep already?”

Isabel nods tiredly. “I had bad dreams last night,” she mutters. “I’m tired.”

“Wake me up if you need anything,” Levi tells her, barely catching her mumble of ‘okay’ from underneath the covers.

 

It’s not the best night’s sleep Levi’s ever gotten; Isabel keeps kicking him in his sleep and it feels wrong to have someone else in his bed with him, taking up space and snoring. In the morning he gets up before Isabel to go to the bathroom to get rid of his awkward morning boner before she gets a chance to point it out and laugh at him – and he’s got no doubts that she would. When he goes back, he finds her sitting up in bed, her hair sticking up in every possible direction.

“You sleep okay?” Levi asks her and she nods absently, yawning. “Bad dreams?”

Isabel shakes her head and stretches her back. “I didn’t have any dreams,” she says, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and jumping up. “Come on. The pups have already had breakfast.”

They walk downstairs together to find the kitchen busy and full – but not with people getting their breakfasts. Everywhere Levi looks he can see cutting boards and bowls and jars that Nan, Mike, Ansel and Edith are all doing something to. There are a dozen closed jars already on the kitchen counter, all filled with some kind of red gunk that Levi recognizes from the dinner table.

“Do we really need all this kimchi?” he asks Mike on his way to the electric kettle.

“It’s good to eat preserves during the winter,” the man tells him quietly, jamming more cabbage into a fresh jar.

“Uh-huh,” Levi says, spreading cream cheese onto a sliced-up bagel and taking another look around the room. “Do you know where Erwin is?”

“He’s out testing the drone,” Mike says, calling after Levi when he starts speeding away, “Let him know we could use a hand over here.”

“Got it,” Levi says back, holding the bagel between his teeth while he pulls on his tennis shoes and shrugs into his jacket.

He follows the sound of the drone towards the woods where he finds Erwin shifting his gaze between the sky and a laptop screen he’s placed on a kitchen stool he’s carried outside. Erwin looks up long before Levi’s reached him and waves his hand in a large arch over his head as a hello, which Levi answers, bagel in hand. He crosses the distance in a lazy jog, feeling his lips pulling into an instant smile when he hears Erwin’s soft wish of good morning.

“Is it working okay?” he asks, squinting at the laptop screen that’s showing the tops of trees somewhere further in the forest.

“So far so good,” Erwin tells him, fiddling with the controller; the image on the laptop screen moves and changes. “The camera’s better on this than on the previous one.”

Levi watches the trees blurring past, the furthest edge of the lake slowly coming into view. Beyond the foliage Levi spots something, a dark rectangular shape he recognizes as the roof of a house.

“What’s that building?” he asks Erwin, pointing it out on the screen for the man when he bends over to inspect the screen.

“That was the main house of the pack once,” he explains, “still back about seventy years ago.”

“It doesn’t look very big,” Levi comments; it doesn’t look much bigger than the house in the trailer park.

“It isn’t,” Erwin confirms and starts steering the drone back towards the edge of the woods. “Hence the new buildings. It was used as a lake house for a while, but with everything else being built on this side of the lake, we’ve pretty much stopped using it.”

“You’d get some peace and quiet out there I bet,” Levi mutters and Erwin laughs.

“You definitely would,” Erwin agrees, “but it’d need a lot of work to be in a livable condition. It’s got no running water or electricity.”

“Couldn’t you just…” Levi starts, shrugging. “I don’t know, strap a couple of solar panels on the roof or something?”

Erwin laughs again and nods. “I think it would take a bit more work than that,” he says, “but it’s not a bad idea in itself.”

They fall quiet for a while, watching the footage changing on the laptop, from the lake across the woods, towards the border. Levi recognizes the first places he ever visited on the pack’s lands, the little paths he used to walk down, leaving his scent behind. When the drone comes to the clearing, Levi grabs Erwin’s arm.

“Can you fly it over to–” he starts, pausing to draw a breath. “Over the trailer park? Just once?”

Levi feels Erwin’s sympathy and compassion though he doesn’t look at him. He keeps staring at the laptop, taking in the familiar routes he once used to run down: from the border to the rock quarry, past the little stream, towards the house. He knows the edge of the backyard, spots the cooking pit by the house, the lines of trailers flanking the path that cuts through them, small and winding. It looks the same. Exactly how he left it. He spots two figures by the last trailer, dark spots against the muddy ground – Ralph and Djel, probably.

“Yeah,” Levi mutters, at no one in particular. “Yeah, I’m good. Just… it’s enough. Thanks.”

“You alright?” Erwin asks, taking a moment to meet Levi’s eyes while steering the drone.

“Yeah,” Levi says again, nodding for emphasis. “Yeah, I’m good. It’s okay.”

Levi keeps staring at his shoes while Erwin guides the drone back to the edge of the wood and lands it a couple of yards from where they’re standing. There’s a twisting tension inside him, like a belt pulled tight across his chest. He tries not to think about it and bites down around the feeling, only looking up when he feels Erwin’s hand on his shoulder.

“Hey,” the man whispers, forcing Levi’s eyes on himself. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Levi says, though he’s not sure it’s true. Erwin’s hand feels good, heavy and grounding, the skin of his fingers against the skin of Levi’s neck seems to warm his whole body. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have done–”

“Hey,” Levi interrupts him, shaking his head. “I asked you to, didn’t I? And I’m fine. Honest.”

“I really didn’t want to upset–” Erwin starts again but Levi cuts him off.

“Shut up,” he says, letting out a strained laugh. “Okay? You didn’t do anything so stop it.”

“Well if you’re sure,” Erwin settles, sighing and squeezing Levi’s shoulder; for a second Levi wonders if he’s going to do something else, like pull Levi against his body or kiss him, but in the end Erwin just says, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Levi shakes his head again. “No, I’m good,” he decides, taking a couple of steps away from Erwin. There’s nothing to talk about, anyway. “Mike told me to tell you, they need some help with the kimchi when you’re free.”

Erwin groans quietly. “Right,” he says, like only now remembering it. “I guess there’s no way around it.”

“You don’t like kimchi?” Levi asks, laughing when Erwin shakes his head. “I thought that wasn’t allowed in this house.”

“It very nearly isn’t,” Erwin comments, sighing when he bends down to pick up the drone.

“Can’t you use your birthday to get out of it?” Levi suggests, slowing down his steps to match the snail’s pace Erwin’s moving at. “Just say you’re depressed about getting older or something.”

“Oh, is that how it is?” Erwin asks him, and Levi laughs.

“I mean…” Levi starts, grimacing and drawing a sharp breath. “Twenty-nine. That’s almost thirty. Don’t people usually freak out about that?”

“Do you think it’s something worth freaking out over?” Erwin asks and Levi shrugs.

“I don’t think so,” he says, more seriously now. “We all die someday, right? Worrying about dumb shit like that just seems like a waste of time.”

“I think most people don’t really worry about death so much as they miss being young,” Erwin muses. “You get this feeling like you’ll never get that back. I think it’s a grieving of sorts.”

“Well why can’t you just keep doing the things you did when you were young when you’re older?” Levi asks. “What’s stopping you? If it makes you happy and it’s how you want to live your life then why not?”

“It’s weird, but things don’t _feel_ the same anymore when you’re older,” Erwin explains, scratching the back of his head. “And I think as you get older, you start to want different things in your life. But you can still be kind of wistful about the things you had before. It’s like… you wish you could want them again, though you don’t really.”

Levi frowns and tries to understand the feeling Erwin’s talking about, but doesn’t recognize it within himself. Being young is a fucking hassle. Always having to rely on other people because you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing, not being able to just take care of yourself and live like you want.

“I wouldn’t really bother with birthdays anymore,” Erwin says, “but you know how mother is. I’m just looking forward to a quick drink in town with Mike and Nan next Saturday.”

“So you don’t like the whole–”

“It’s not that I don’t like it,” Erwin explains, embarrassed. “I appreciate it, I do. I just wish people didn’t spend so much time on something like that for my sake.”

“I think Edith does it more for her own sake than for your sake,” Levi says honestly, and Erwin laughs.

“You’re probably right about that,” he agrees, sighing heavily when they reach the front porch. “Well. No way around it I guess.”

They make kimchi until lunch prep starts; Erwin skulks back into his office then with his keep-warm cup and a toasted bagel. Levi stays to help with the chopping but escapes to his room while the soup finishes cooking. He contemplates going to Erwin’s office, but guesses the man is busy working, and decides against disturbing him, even for the minute it would take to kiss him. He’d make it less angry this time – better, hopefully, though he’s not sure if the first one was shitty or not. Erwin hasn’t complained – but then, it’s not as if he would – and he’s not tried to kiss Levi either. Maybe it means the kiss wasn’t anything special. Not good enough to repeat, not bad enough to criticize.

Levi tries to focus on his book, but thoughts of Erwin keep interrupting him. He keeps rubbing the spot where Erwin touched him on his shoulder and in his mind the touch lingers, rubs the scar on his neck, turns into hot breaths on the sensitive skin. His lack of focus continues after the weekend and every single word out of his teachers’ mouths makes him think of Erwin: Erwin teaching him probability math, Erwin teaching him about the civil rights movement, Erwin leaning over him to point out a mistake he’s made in one of his calculations – on purpose. He’d have that tone of voice he uses when he’s teaching someone: confident but not dominating, just calm and knowing and self-assured. He’d run one of his large hands through his hair sometimes, his fingers coming down to tease open the top-most button of that navy blue shirt Levi loves to see him wear, the one he’s imagined ending up on the floor of Erwin’s bedroom more often than once.  He’s so deep in his thoughts that he doesn’t even think to pay attention to Lovof.

Despite all the time he spends thinking of Erwin, it doesn’t occur to Levi to get a gift for him for his birthday until Farlan invites him to the mall halfway through the week.

“You can help me find something for him too,” Farlan tells him when they meet at their usual spot by the bookshop.

“Why would you get a gift for Erwin?” Levi asks, frowning when Farlan smiles.

“I’m coming to the birthday… thing,” he says. “You know, the party or whatever. Flagon invited me.”

“Oh,” Levi voices, shuddering a little. Farlan mingling with the pack, being introduced as Flagon’s… whatever the hell. Weird. Weird weird weird. In the end he fixes a neutral expression on his face and says, “Okay. Cool.”

“So what kind of stuff does he like?” Farlan asks and Levi shrugs.

“I’m not sure he even wants presents,” he tells Farlan who rolls his eyes.

“It’s not polite showing up without one,” Farlan insists, stopping to check his phone quickly for messages. “And I think you should definitely get him one. It’ll be like you don’t care if you don’t.”

“I don’t think it works like that with him.”

“Trust me, it works like that with everyone,” Farlan assures him, putting his phone back in his pocket. “So what kind of stuff does he like?”

“I don’t know,” Levi admits, looking around himself like something that screams ‘Erwin’ is going to manifest itself right in front of him. “Books? Solar panels. All this green… eco crap, I don’t know.”

“Wow,” Farlan says, sounding supremely unimpressed. “How can you not know this stuff? I thought you like him.”

“I do,” Levi argues, scratching the back of his head. “I just… don’t know him that well.”

“How can you like him if you don’t even know him?”

“I don’t know,” Levi says, feeling awkward; it’s not such a dumb question. “I just do.”

Farlan sighs and pulls Levi into the bookshop. “Maybe I can find a book about solar panels or something,” he mutters and starts browsing through the shelves with Levi dragging his feet behind him.

They spend a good fifteen minutes in the bookshop with Farlan eventually settling for a book on the species of plants native to the Pacific Northwest. Levi eyes it enviously when Farlan makes the purchase – it’s a fucking good gift, and he has exactly zero ideas himself.

“He seems like someone who likes gifts he can actually use,” Farlan points out when they’re walking around a health food store. “Is he low on vitamin B12?”

“Hey yeah, let me check the blood I drew from him this morning and find that out for you,” Levi counters, spreading his arms when Farlan fixes him with an unimpressed stare. “How the fuck should I know shit like that?”

They keep walking around until, during some moment of either despair or fucking insanity, Levi grabs a recyclable, reusable take-away cup made of bamboo and buys it. He can tell Farlan is holding his tongue the whole walk back to the parking lot. It’s only when he pops the cup onto his desk in his room that Levi lets himself drown in the realization of how fucking terrible a gift it makes.

“Fuck,” he whispers softly, staring at the green silicone lid of the mug. “Fucking fuck.”

He grabs his phone and send a text to Farlan: _it’s shit_ with no context. Farlan replies in ten seconds with a resounding _yeah._

“Maybe you could give him something that’s not like… a thing,” Farlan suggests when Levi emergency-calls him. “Like do something with him. And I don’t mean like a blowjob or anything. Like… take him hiking, I don’t know.”

“Yeah,” Levi says, already feeling like the idea is his road to salvation. “Yeah, I could do that.”

But when he hangs up the phone, Levi’s faced with the same problem he had before, after the fucking disaster of a date they had: what the hell would the two of them do together? He spends the whole evening brainstorming, even pulling out a sheet of paper and a pen but ends up writing nothing down because there isn’t a single idea he can come up with. He keeps turning the problem over in his head through the rest of the week, swearing into his pillow before falling asleep when all feasible plans he can think of are a farmer’s market – guaranteed to be half empty by now – and a small local museum Erwin’s probably visited a hundred times with the pups. When he finally comes up with something, he keeps going back and forth between thinking it’s genius and thinking it’s the dumbest idea anyone’s ever had to the point where he loses all sight of it and decides to just go for it – it can’t be worse than the fucking sushi date, however it turns out.

He knocks on Erwin’s door after finishing his breakfast on Saturday, not stopping to wait for Erwin to answer but marching right in – his nerves would tear his brain to shreds if he didn’t.

“You busy?” he asks, his stomach twisting when he sees the man behind his desk, laptop at the ready and a pile of papers next to his keep-warm cup.

“Not especially,” Erwin replies, leaning back in his chair. “What’s up?”

“I thought we could go somewhere,” Levi blurts out breathily and shrugs. “Like a birthday thing or whatever.”

The wide smile on Erwin’s face seems to spread through Levi’s body, making his skin tingly and numb all at the same time.

“I’d love that,” he says, already standing up at his desk. “Where do you want to go?”

Levi bites the inside of his mouth for a second. “It’s a surprise,” he finally says, making Erwin look up, excited.

“I love a good surprise,” he says, shrugging into his parka and grabbing his keys. “After you.”

They walk around the house to the hybrid, both circling it to the driver’s side until Levi stops in his tracks.

“I’m driving,” he states, shooing Erwin over to the passenger side, where he buckles up, smiling so widely Levi wonders if his cheeks hurt.

“So you’re really not going to tell me where–”

“I’m really not going to tell you,” Levi assures him, grinning when Erwin sighs. “It’s not far. And at least I’m not making you wear a blindfold or any of that shit.”

“Right,” Erwin agrees, laughing and stretching his legs a little nervously. “It’s a surprise. Got it.”

Levi checked the directions earlier that morning; he’s only ever been there once himself, for a disastrous birthday party Farlan’s parents threw him one year before they knew anything about what he was like and kept giving him all the generic boys’ birthdays you’d ever heard of, one after the other. He parks the car outside, feeling Erwin’s confusion when he stares at the building through the windshield, thick brows drawn to a frown.

“You’ve never been here before,” Levi realizes, getting out of the car when Erwin does.

“Can’t say that I have,” Erwin mutters; Levi can tell when he notices the small, beat-up sign by the building from the way his brows climb up towards his hairline and his mood shifts from confusion to apprehension.

“Come on,” Levi encourages him, locking the car. “It’ll be fun. Something you’ve never done before.”

“Okay,” Erwin says, more hesitation in his voice, as he starts following Levi into the building, past the chipped paint of the sign that still flashes out the word ‘paintball.’

Once inside, Levi walks straight up to the guy at the counter, screwing his face up a little when he catches the stench of pot coming off him. He pays his and Erwin’s fees and shakes his head when the guy asks if they need any instructions or help with the gear.

“You don’t want those,” Levi tells Erwin when he finds him eyeing the handguns on display in the next room, grabbing one of the rifle-types off the wall. “We want the big guns.”

“Guns,” Erwin says, laughing uncomfortably. “Do I really need to–”

“They’re not real,” Levi tells him, lowering the paintball gun he’s weighing in his hands. “It’s just fun. Thousands of people do this all the time, and they don’t start shooting up schools or join the army or anything.”

“Right,” Erwin says, exhaling and shaking his head. “It’s just fun.”

“Yeah,” Levi tells him, passing him a gun off the stand. “Try that on for size.”

“Why do I feel like I’m going to come out of this looking like a Jackson Pollock painting,” Erwin mutters, holding the gun awkwardly against his chest and peering through the sight.

“Come on,” Levi says, slapping him on the arm. “Let’s go gear up.”

It’s not an even fight, not by a long shot. It’s clear most of the things to hide behind on the course aren’t meant for someone Erwin’s size, and there’s always a foot or an elbow sticking out for Levi to aim at. Erwin’s not a natural, but he learns quickly and by the end of the game he’s getting Levi cornered more and more often, forcing him on the retreat for a good ten minutes before Levi finds high ground and starts firing back, chasing Erwin’s laughter out across the grounds. By the end of the game, Erwin’s gear is splattered with neon green whereas Levi’s is relatively clean, with a small smudge here and there.

“Guess you’ve done this before, huh?” he asks Levi, tearing off his goggles and wiping sweat off his face.

“Just once,” Levi tells him, sitting down in the locker room to catch his breath. “But I’ve used guns before, so I guess that counts as practice.”

“Right, your BB gun,” Erwin remembers, sitting down as well, his legs falling open like he’s too exhausted to hold their weight.

“That,” Levi says, “and I’d shoot bottles with Kenny’s shotgun too sometimes.”

“I never saw what was so great about them,” Erwin says, smiling, “but I have to admit, this was a lot of fun.”

“Yeah?” Levi asks, beaming when Erwin nods. “Glad you had a good time.”

Erwin laughs again. “I didn’t think I would, to be honest,” he confesses, pulling off his helmet to reveal his sweaty, messy hair. “Thanks. For getting me to try something new.”

“No problem,” Levi says, trying to hide his flushing cheeks. “I had a great time too. Plus…” he starts, pausing to chew the inside of his cheek. “You look hot in all that get-up.”

“Yeah?” Erwin asks, looking down at himself and chuckling.

“Yeah,” Levi says, hesitating for a few seconds before standing up and crossing the small space over to Erwin, stopping only when he’s standing in the space between Erwin’s legs. “You look fucking sexy.”

Levi feels like every single one of his fantasies is there in the way Erwin looks up at him, his lips slightly parted and his breathing heavy, hands already coming up to caress the small of Levi’s back through the gear. He lets his gaze wander across Erwin’s face, over his cheekbones and chin and mouth, only passing over his eyes because the look in them makes Levi’s stomach clench with the heat pooling into his groin. The kiss, when he finally bends down to give it, is the opposite of the first, as gentle as it was angry. It grows more alike as it deepens, when Erwin’s hands start sliding downwards in small, polite half-inch nudges that make Levi’s own fingers restless for a hold on Erwin, itching for a touch of his hair or the back of his head.

The door of the locker room flies open with a bang and Levi steps back hurriedly, meeting the dazed face of the guy who works the counter.

“Dude,” he breathes, swaying a little, “I’m not gonna say anything to anyone, I swear.”

“Yeah great, thanks,” Levi snaps at him, bursting into breathless laughter with Erwin when the guy closes the door behind himself.

They drive back over to the house, stinking up the car with their sweat that makes Levi feel dizzy and imagine things that make it near impossible for him to focus on the road ahead. There’s something so relaxed and easy about the way Erwin sits next to him that it makes Levi wonder if all those painfully uncomfortable moments between them ever even happened, and if Erwin was ever as uneasy as he himself was.

“Oh, look, they’ve got the whole birthday thing set for you already,” Levi says once he stops the car in front of the house.

“How do you know?”

“That’s Farlan’s car,” Levi says, pointing out the Ford Fiesta parked next to the porch.

“Oh yeah,” Erwin says and sighs tiredly. “Do you mind distracting them for a minute? I just… really need a shower.”

“Sure,” Levi promises, holding Erwin’s lingering stare with a smile for a good five seconds before getting out of the car.

He’s barely in through the door when Edith peers out of the kitchen and asks him whether Erwin came back with him.

“He spilled coffee on himself so he’s washing up,” Levi lies at once without blinking. “He said he won’t be long.”

“Where did you two go?” she asks next. “You’re very flushed. Did something happen?”

Levi shakes his head. “I didn’t have time to shower in the morning,” he goes on lying while pulling off his tennis shoes. “I needed to return a couple of books to the library and Erwin had a couple of errands to run.”

“Alright,” Edith says, clearly not giving Levi’s explanation any more thought. “Well we’re all ready if you want to join us.”

Levi follows her into the dining room where everyone’s waiting, gathered around the table where a big cake is threatening to start melting under the glow of all the candles Edith has lit on top of it. He spots Farlan across the room next to Flagon; they look less like a couple and more like a young dad and his college-aged son enjoying some quality time together. Levi shudders and wonders whether him and Erwin looked like that to the guy at the register of the paintball place. Edith’s disapproval is palpable whenever her eyes happen upon them.

Erwin acts surprised when he comes in, still buttoning the cuffs of his shirt; Levi thinks it’s nice of him to pretend since it makes the pups so happy. He sits down on his spot at the end of the table and lets Edith fuss over him, carrying food and cake to him while the rest of them wish him happy birthday. He opens his presents and thanks everyone, gushing over the book Farlan gave him in particular. Levi feels too embarrassed to give him the stupid mug with the much better gifts everyone else is giving him; he takes it to him later instead, once the festivities have died down and Erwin’s been able to escape back into the safety and quiet of his office.

“I know it’s really dumb,” Levi tells him when he pulls the cup out of a gift bag, “so I thought the other thing was kind of a gift as well, you know.”

“I love it,” Erwin tells him, inspecting the cup. “I think I’ve read about these. Is it bamboo?”

“Yeah, and it’s like, you can recycle it and everything if it breaks and stuff,” Levi tells him, rubbing the back of his neck. “I know it’s really–”

“It’s wonderful,” Erwin tells him, bending down to give him a quick kiss that makes his ears burn hot. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

Levi pulls his shoulders towards his ears and releases them slowly, pushing his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants.  For a few seconds he tries to think of something else to say to dismiss the gift, but in the end gives up and just lets it be.

“And I really had a great time today,” Erwin says, and Levi can sense he’s aching to touch him. “I want to do that again sometime, to go out. Just you and me.”

“Yeah, I’d like that too,” Levi tells him, hovering for a couple more seconds before starting to pace slowly backwards towards the door. When he finally reaches it he turns around with one last thought. “You didn’t say anything to anyone about the paintball thing, did you?”

Erwin looks up from the take-away cup. “No,” he says, confused. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s just…” Levi starts, pausing to draw a breath. “I told Edith we were just running errands.”

“Okay,” Erwin stretches out the word, his brows drawing to a frown. “Why?”

“I just…” Levi starts again, frowning himself. “I don’t want her to know. Or anyone. If that’s okay.”

Meeting Erwin’s perplexed stare makes Levi’s heart beat a little harder, but he doesn’t turn away; it’s Erwin who averts his gaze first, and Levi can tell there are questions he’s burying behind the simple answer he gives.

“Sure,” he says, giving Levi a reassuring smile. “We don’t have to tell anyone, if that’s what you want.”

“Good,” Levi says, sighing in relief and opening the door behind himself. “So I guess… happy birthday.”

“Thank you, Levi,” Erwin says, beaming from his desk, his hand still clutching the cup. “It really was.”


	5. Chapter 5

The smell of blood hangs over the clearing, hot and oppressive. It clings to the roof of Levi’s mouth and makes the kidney he just ate feel more filling than it should. The sounds that accompany the stench seem to fortify it; growls and the tearing of flesh while the last few wolves get their meals. Levi licks the sides of his snout to catch the last few drops of blood he can get off his fur while he moves around the meadow at a restless canter. He sees Erwin, lying in the grass with the pups jumping on him and wants to run over, to smell him and sniff the sides of his mouth, to pay homage and be recognized in return – but some irritating voice in his head is telling him not to; the part that’s not a wolf, the one who doesn’t do things the same, the one who worries about things that don’t really exist.

There’s excitement in the pack; it’s the lost members, Levi knows, and what it means. The pack is growing as they speak, preparing to welcome a new addition, another pup to pester Erwin during hunts, to bite his tail and bark and whine at him. They take advantage of still being able to get away with it, especially now that Edith isn’t here to keep them in line. Levi wouldn’t try it anymore, even with how he knows Erwin is. Instead he lies down not far from the alpha and presses his head onto his paws. He can smell the earth on them, the little bits of it he’s carried from the edge of the woods here to the heart of the forest. He can smell the prey, its fear and anguish are stuck underneath his claws until he lets go of them and becomes that other side of himself again, the one that doesn’t live under the trees.

Erwin moves, and Levi looks up, following him with his eyes. He wants to run over, to bend down over his front legs and invite the alpha to play, to get him to chase him like he did when the cold lay over the earth. That was the first time Levi learned that there are scents and _scents,_ that there could be things more tempting than the smell of a lame old buck. Now, with the hunt over, Levi remembers it again and it burns in his body whenever he catches the smell of Erwin, his breath hot from the hunt, his instincts foremost on his mind.

Isabel jogs over to him and Levi can smell her excitement and keenness to run around the meadow with her tongue lolling out of her mouth. She nips playfully at his hindlegs, darting away as soon as he lifts his head up to bare his teeth at her. She keeps at it, stopping only after he has chased her across the clearing and made the pups rowdy and wild. He feels Erwin watching and behaves better for it, even after when the pups keep tugging at the fur on his tail to get him to chase them too. Later he chooses a spot near Erwin and lies down in the grass again, and as he watches the alpha, that other part of him starts to push through, with thoughts and feelings that are foreign; indoor thoughts, too soft and defenseless for the wild; skin-covered hands touching sensitive flesh.

He keeps that part quiet until a low, quivering howl calls them to the path back. Another voice answers it, from the home den; everything’s going how it’s supposed to, no need to worry or hurry back; it’ll be hours still. Erwin keeps a leisurely pace and it gives Levi a chance to emerge from the mind of the wolf; it feels like waking up after a long-overdue nap, like he’s fallen asleep on a warm summer’s day and woken up only when the evening is starting to cool. His limbs feel strange when he changes into his skin and slouches up the steps to the hunting lodge – still only after everyone else, though they’re all so busy herding the pups along that they pay him no mind. He keeps not-looking at Erwin; catching small flashes of his body from the corner of his eye, and even they’re almost enough to make him hard. So he keeps his gaze on the tiled floor and washes up quickly, to let go of the lure of the smell of blood on his face.

When he leaves, he finds Erwin waiting for him, a wet towel hanging off his shoulders catching the beads of water dripping out of his hair. Levi joins him quickly, keeping pace with him when they walk back towards the house. The evening air is fragrant, and cold enough to make Levi fasten the zipper of his hoodie against the breeze blowing over the green.

“A cup of tea’s going to be good after this,” Levi mutters and Erwin agrees quietly, sighing like he’s not been this content in years.

“That was a good hunt,” he says, smiling. “I was afraid the timing would make everyone feel distracted but I’m glad that wasn’t the case.”

“Yeah, it was good,” Levi says and yawns. “My wolf was going wild the whole time.”

“Your wolf?” Erwin asks him, and when Levi sees the frown on his face, his own brows knit over his eyes too.

“Yeah,” he says, confused. “Like… my wolf. You know?”

“Is that how you see it?” Erwin goes on, sounding even more baffled than Levi. “As a separate…”

Levi waits for a moment for Erwin to finish his sentence but when he doesn’t he shrugs. “Yeah,” he states. “Don’t you?”

“Not really, no,” Erwin tells him, turning to look ahead himself towards the main house. “It’s more of an integrated experience.”

“Oh,” Levi voices, still frowning when he turns to stare at the grass he can just make out under his feet. “Okay.”

“I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with experiencing it differently,” Erwin assures him gently. “There’s no one right way to be a werewolf. We all have our own way of doing things.”

“Right,” Levi mutters, shoving his hands into his pockets to ward off the cold.

He’d never even thought about it, that other people might see it differently. He tries to think back to what made him separate the two parts of himself but can’t pinpoint anything. It’s how Kenny always talked of it: the human and the wolf, and the wolf is a weapon. You use it to get what you want. Top of the food chain wherever you go. Nothing can hurt you. No one is more powerful than you and your pack.

“So for you it’s just…” Levi starts, not knowing how to continue so he shrugs. “You’re just always you? Just the same?”

“Not exactly the same,” Erwin explains, frowning. “Obviously things feel different in different forms, I notice things I wouldn’t otherwise notice, things like that. It’s like my relationship with the outside world changes, but inside it’s more or less the same.”

“Okay,” Levi says, glancing up at Erwin and trying to picture it but failing. “Is everyone else more like you or–”

“I don’t know,” the man admits pensively. “I’ve never really asked. I think a lot of people just go ahead and assume their way of seeing it is the way everyone else does.”

“I guess,” Levi agrees, kicking the wet grass with the tip of his shoe.

They fall quiet and Levi keeps mulling it over in his mind until Erwin laughs and grabs a hold of his arm, pulling him against his side.

“So serious,” he states, letting go only when Levi smiles. “Try not to worry about it. I’m sure there’s no reason to be concerned.”

“Okay,” Levi agrees, laughing breathily and punching Erwin on his forearm. “Thanks.”

Back at the house Ansel has cooked up snacks; he’s still pulling cookies out of the oven when they get to the kitchen, wearing his dumb apron and humming to himself. Levi gets himself hot water from a thermos and starts making himself a cup of tea, grabbing a sandwich while he waits. Vegan BLT. Fucking delicious.

“How’s it going over there?” Erwin asks as soon as he’s poured himself a cup of coffee. “Any news?”

“Slowly but surely is what your mother said the last time she called,” Ansel tells him, moving the cookies onto a cooling rack. “The midwife said it’ll be hours still but that everything’s moving along as it should.”

“Good good,” Erwin muses, sitting down with a weary sigh; Levi watches him picking up a cookie and taking a bite out of it only to wince in pain.

“They’re still hot,” Ansel points out – kind of uselessly now – before bringing the plateful of sandwiches over to the kitchen island just as Mike and Nan walk in.

“The guest room is all ready,” she announces, yawning and taking a seat next to Erwin, eyeing the cookies but holding back.

“Who’s it ready for?” Levi asks, sitting down with his cup of tea and picking up another sandwich.

“The midwife,” Mike explains quickly. “She doesn’t live nearby, and this might take a long time.”

“She’ll want to be there to help out the day after as well and to check everything’s alright,” Ansel adds, joining the rest of them with a glass of soy milk. “It’s been a while since Edith or I did this either, so it’s good to get some professional help.”

“I hear breastfeeding can be a bitch if you get it wrong,” Nan states, stretching her arms above her head.

Levi shudders and focuses on his tea and sandwich. He can feel the post-hunting tiredness seeping into his body; it pulls on his limbs, makes them heavy and relaxed along with his eyelids which threaten to close before he’s even finished his tea – and no wonder, having gotten up at the crack of fucking dawn. He drags himself to bed after finishing his sandwich and a couple of cookies, falling asleep right away. He wakes up to a score of voices carrying up to his room, blinking in the sudden brightness when he checks the screen of his phone: quarter past three.

Marie must’ve had her baby.

The cup of tea he had before bed weighs in his bladder and he relieves himself quickly, hovering at the door to his room for a moment before turning away and sneaking down the stairs instead. He follows the voices over to the kitchen, stepping in quietly and taking in the scene in the dim light cast by a few overhead lamps: Edith, Ansel and Erwin sitting at the kitchen island with an old woman, her hair nearly whiter than the paint of the cupboards. She has a plateful of food in front of her and a cup of tea next to it. When she turns around at the sound of the door, she peers at Levi over a pair of glasses that sit low on her pointy nose.

“Ah,” she says, nodding once at Levi. “I see you’ve got another one of mine.”

Levi stares at her and frowns, trying to understand her statement but failing until Edith speaks up.

“You were Levi’s mother’s midwife?” she asks the old woman who nods again.

“It’s been a long time, but I never forget a scent,” she says, squinting at Levi and tilting her chin upwards. “Come over here, boy. Let me take a look at you.”

“Uhh…” Levi starts, only walking forward when the old woman beckons him over again.

She takes a long look at him and clicks her tongue. “God, you were a little runt of a thing,” she says, placing her hands on Levi’s arms – he’s not quite sure why he lets her, “and I see the years haven’t done much to change that.”

“Right,” Levi drawls, frowning. “Who the fuck are you again?”

The old woman lets out a cackling laugh. “I’m the first person you ever met on this earth,” she tells him, letting go of his arms and guiding him over to a chair by her right. “Glad to see the mouth still runs in the family. I never heard a woman swear so much as your mother did giving birth to you.”

“It’s incredible that you’d remember it,” Ansel comments from across the island. “I mean, it was nearly nineteen years ago.”

“Like I said, I never forget a scent,” the midwife states again, taking a sip of her tea. “And besides, it’s not every Christmas Eve you get called to deliver a baby. You remember things like that, even if the cast of characters wasn’t as unusual as it was.”

“So you knew Levi’s mother?” Edith asks, and Levi’s heart skips a beat.

“I knew her as well as a midwife knows any expectant mother,” the old woman says, taking a bite out of her sandwich. “She was a sweet thing – but tough as nails too, you could tell.”

“Like mother like son then,” Erwin says, giving Levi a quick smile that he can’t answer.

“I heard when she passed away,” the old woman tells Levi, turning to him and laying her hand on his shoulder. “I was a little worried then, remembering how your uncle was. But I see you’ve landed on your feet.”

Levi looks around the table, frowning, before turning his eyes on the tabletop. He can feel the sympathy in the room and it makes his stomach clench. He can’t tell which one of them is the worst, though he’s pretty sure it’s a tie between Edith and Erwin. At the very least it’s keeping him from trying to picture his mother giving birth to him – or any of what came after it.

“I suppose your uncle still runs the pack?” the midwife asks him, nodding when Levi does. “He had that burn in him even then, though he wasn’t the alpha yet.”

“He chased out the former one,” Levi tells her; she doesn’t seem surprised.

“Your grandfather – of sorts, I guess you could call him,” the old woman says, huffing a little. “I had my doubts about your uncle as well, but I guess he was the lesser of two evils. He wasn’t much of a one for conversation, but he sure had some arms on him.”

“Arms?”

“Oh, yes,” the midwife tells him, cackling a little again. “Not once did I drive up to your place without seeing him first thing, out on the front porch lifting weights.”

Instantly Levi pictures one of Kenny’s old AC/DC t-shirts that Traute would wear despite the holes in them, and he scoffs. It’s not a hard image to conjure up even if Kenny’s arms have long since lost whatever charm the old woman once saw in them, Levi’s sure.

“Did Levi’s mother have a successful pregnancy?” Ansel asks and the midwife huffs.

“Judge for yourself,” she says, nodding at Levi and laughing. “The child lived and the mother lived. I’ve always felt that if anything beyond that needs fixing, love will take care of it in time.”

“Of course,” Ansel agrees. “I was just curious as to how she might have felt about it. I understand she was quite young?”

“She was a little on the young side,” the midwife confirms, lifting her teacup but not drinking, “but she was happy to become a mother, there was no doubt about that – though she seemed to forget it while she was giving birth, judging by how she was cursing.”

In the silence that follows Levi can’t help but think about the question no one’s asking; it sits on the tip of his own tongue, he’s not sure if he wants to know or whether not knowing is what’s making him uneasy. Not that knowing something about it would change things in any way – but the handful of words on the cassette tape feel like a letter that got lost in the mail and arrived eighteen years too late, and that more than anything makes Levi speak.

“Did she ever say anything about…” he starts, not knowing what to call him. The father? _My_ father? A boyfriend? The old woman seems to understand regardless and lays down her cup of tea.

“It’s not as if she didn’t know who he was,” she explains, shaking her head. “I told her to get in touch with him, but she said he needed to work on his dreams – whatever that meant. He was some sort of musician, so maybe it had something to do with that. As far as I know she never told him about you, though you’d be better off asking your uncle, I’m sure.”

Levi nods, flinching when Edith lays her hand on his arm. He pulls away from the touch and pretends to need a glass of water so he can leave the table, but the silence follows him over to the sink so he slips into the pantry instead. He rummages in the freezer for ice cubes, hoping they’ll provide an excuse; even if no one really believes it, it feels better than having the confusion he feels sitting at the table with the rest of them like an open guest. He’s half expecting Edith to show up to give him a motherly hug, but when he hears the door opening behind him and turns to look, he finds Erwin following him into the pantry instead.

“You okay?” he asks, voice full of concern despite Levi’s hurried nod.

“How’s Marie?” he gives as a reply, realizing he never asked. “And the baby.”

“They’re good,” Erwin tells him, smiling. “Tired but happy is what the midwife said.”

“Good,” Levi says, closing the freezer despite having found no ice. “I should probably go back to bed. School on Monday.”

“You sure?” Erwin asks again. “Do you want me to–”

“Nah, I’m…” Levi starts, shaking his head and shrugging; the whole moment feels suddenly unreal. “I’m good.”

“Sure,” Erwin says, stepping out of the way when Levi walks out of the pantry.

He runs his glass of water up the stairs after a quick good night to everyone and though it was his intention to go straight back to sleep, he finds it harder than he thought. His mind keeps circling, going back to the things the midwife told him: that his mother was happy to have him, that he has her mouth; that his father never knew. He’s always thought the guy must’ve been some special brand of asshole – that’s how Kenny made it sound, anyway – but you can hardly blame a guy for not keeping in touch with a kid he didn’t know he had. Levi remembers what Kenny said when he came to the house, that the man was dead the last he heard.

Levi pulls out Ansel’s old Walkman and picks out a cassette tape, fast forwarding to the point he wants to hear: the low voices, the casual conversation, the song they sang together. He doesn’t sound like a bad guy – but then, Kenny must’ve known more about him than the midwife. Levi rubs his chest absently. It’s not really sadness he feels, or at least he doesn’t think so, just a sort of numbness that feels like it’s taking up the space of something that should be there instead.

He falls asleep eventually and when he wakes up the midwife is gone, leaving him wondering if he dreamed the encounter or just had a very vivid dream. She doesn’t show up again until late in the afternoon, to say goodbye to the household before she’s on her way. Levi keeps his distance, preferring not to hear more stories about his mother giving birth, but even so he catches the old woman talking with Erwin.

“I’m happy to see you’re being such a good sport about this,” she tells him, patting him on the arm appreciatively. “I know people who would’ve been less courteous.”

“It was the right thing to do, letting them stay,” Erwin says; Levi’s surprised to catch no uneasiness from him. “She always said she’d want to live in the country, and this was Nile’s home. I couldn’t just ask them to leave.”

“Yes,” she agrees, already turning towards the front door. “It’s not a bad day’s work, helping a child into a pack like this.”

“You’re welcome back any time,” Erwin tells her but she scoffs.

“Thank you,” she says, “but one night is more than enough. I miss the quiet – and my cats.”

Erwin laughs when he escorts her out. Levi doesn’t step out of his hiding place until the door closes. The man smiles when he sees him, but the smile he tries to give back feels uncomfortable on Levi’s lips. He thinks about asking Erwin about it, the whole thing with him and Nile and Marie, but doesn’t know how to approach the subject, and just blurting it out feels like punching the man in the face.

“You alright?” Erwin asks him after a moment of silence and Levi nods.

“Yeah,” he grunts, feeling stupid and not knowing what to say so he starts shifting towards the stairs, but Erwin grabs a hold of his arm and pulls him towards himself and into the unused room by the entrance.

“Hey,” he whispers, leaning onto the wall and pulling Levi against his body.

“Hey,” Levi replies, letting himself smile and get excited. Better find a distraction – and there’s no better way than this.

“I’ve been thinking about you,” Erwin mutters quietly, his lips pressed against Levi’s hair.

“Yeah?” Levi asks, smiling when he feels Erwin nodding.

“You smelled so good after the hunt,” the man says breathily. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.”

Levi lifts his gaze to see the look on Erwin’s face: eyes bright and cheeks flushed pink. Levi smells the want on him, the heat of his body that makes his own armpits itch and his hands ache to touch him. He grabs a fistful of Erwin’s shirt and yanks him down to kiss him. He planned for it to be short and borderline bruising, but Erwin wants different, running a hand behind Levi’s head and sliding his tongue in his mouth, the fingers entangled in Levi’s hair traveling lower. When they brush past the scarred skin on his neck, a weird, hoarse moan pushes out of Levi’s throat and every hair on his body stands on end with shivers that force him to break the kiss to catch his breath.

“Fuck,” he whispers, feeling the pressure in his groin.

“You okay?” Erwin asks, breathing heavily. “Did I–”

“No, it’s just…” Levi starts, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s nothing. I’m good.”

He moves back towards Erwin, kissing him again and planting Erwin’s hands firmly onto his own hips. But they wander upwards like drawn by a magnet, and as soon as one of his fingers grazes the scar, Levi groans and moves away, growing harder by the second.

“What is it?”

Levi shakes his head and rubs his neck again, feeling his face heating up. He’s sure the strained fabric on the front of his sweatpants isn’t as invisible as he wishes. Fucking embarrassing. Not as if Erwin has this problem.

“Is it…” the man starts, his voice low and quiet. “Is it the scar?”

Levi glances up but can’t face Erwin for longer than a few seconds. He can smell his own arousal; it’s stinking up the room worse than Erwin’s. He wishes he could smack his own hand over the scar and back slowly out of the room, but he stays still instead and lets Erwin take a step closer.

“Can I…?” he whispers, waiting for Levi’s nod before running his fingers along Levi’s jawline and onto his undercut before brushing them over the scarred skin.

“Fuck,” Levi breathes, leaning his head against Erwin’s chest and trying to stay standing with the shivers that threaten to make his knees buckle. The soft touch on his neck feels good, almost better than anything he’s ever felt before. He wants to shove his hand in his pants and touch himself – or unzip Erwin’s trousers and touch him.

Outside the room, the front door opens and closes; Levi can hear Ansel and Edith talking to each other and he pulls away from Erwin, turning to stare at the piano in the corner and running a shaky hand through his hair. Behind him he hears Erwin’s deep sigh and the way he shuffles towards the door.

“You coming?” he asks Levi who looks behind himself and folds his arms over his chest.

“I need a minute,” he says, bristling when he feels Erwin’s glee.

He waits until he’s sure the coast is clear, then sprints upstairs to take care of his throbbing boner in the privacy of his room, one hand caressing the back of his neck while he imagines Erwin doing it. He keeps his distance from Erwin during the rest of the day, fearing a repeat of the swelling in his pants. Instead he focuses on homework – it’s been piling up as the weeks have been taking them closer to the end of term. The project for his history class keeps him busy during the evenings after school for the next week to the point where he barely manages to help with dinner prep one time out of seven. He buries his face in a book even when he’s waiting out Isabel’s soccer practice in the bleachers – until someone taps him gently on his shoulder.

“Hey,” Petra says, sitting down next to him only when he tells her it’s okay. “You okay?”

Seems like everyone’s asking him that lately.

“Yeah,” he tells her, swaying between putting his book into his backpack and keeping it open around his finger. “You?”

Petra nods and turns to look at the practice going on below. Levi follows it for a while too, wondering if he’s supposed to say something, but Petra saves him the trouble.

“You’ve got Peterson for history too, right?” she asks Levi, continuing after he nods. “Did he assign a project for you yet?”

“We got to pick our own,” Levi explains, putting his book into his backpack. “I chose the Vietnam war.”

“That’s cool,” Petra tells him. “Good subject. I’m doing one on the French resistance during world war two.”

“Sounds good too,” Levi says, keeping quiet though he feels it makes Petra uncomfortable; she only speaks when the silence has stretched on for a few seconds too long.

“Hey,” she says again. “I just wanted to say, I hope you’re not offended by the guys acting kind of weird around you sometimes. They’re just totally like, awestruck by you, that’s all.”

“Uhh… okay,” Levi says, scoffing. “Why?”

“They just think you’re like, so cool,” Petra tells him, letting out a laugh but then growing serious. “No that you’re not! I’m not saying that. They just think you’re a little… too cool for school, you know?”

Levi lets out a snort of laughter. Too cool for school. What the fuck does that even mean?

“Like I think they’re a little…” Petra starts again, pausing to shrug. “I think it’s about where you come from, as well. Like they think you must be tough because you come from a pack like that.”

Levi stays quiet and watches the girls running around on the field below. It makes him uncomfortable, knowing that someone thinks like that; that his life in the trailer park is just a way for him to earn some sort of fucking meaningless street cred, and not what it actually was: a collection of Kenny’s best efforts and good intentions that still turned to shit.

“What was it really like?” Petra asks, her tone careful and reserved. “I mean, you don’t have to answer that if you–”

“It’s cool,” Levi interrupts her, stopping for a moment to clear his throat. “It was alright. There was stuff that wasn’t that great, but I think everyone has that, to some extent.”

“Yeah,” Petra agrees, frowning and smiling at the same time. “Yeah, you’re right. It is like that. Not like any pack is perfect.”

“I don’t know if it made me tough or whatever,” Levi tells her, scoffing. “Guess it made me _me_ , in any case.”

“Do you like your new pack better though?” Petra asks him now; Levi can feel her looking at him but doesn’t move his gaze from the soccer practice.

“Yeah, sure,” he replies, smiling. “It’s great.”

“Good,” Petra says, her voice sweet and caring. “I’m glad you’ve found a good place.”

Levi mutters a thank you and scratches the back of his neck. “What about you? What’s your pack like?”

“It’s just… small,” Petra says and laughs. “It’s home, you know. Nothing special.”

“It’s not like any pack is really special,” Levi says.

“Yeah, I know but…” Petra starts, ending with a laugh and a shrug. “I don’t know. We’re just small I guess. Nothing like the Smiths – or the Reiss pack.”

“Reiss?” Levi asks her. “Like the headmistress?”

“Yeah,” Petra tells him. “They own like, half the town or something.”

Levi scoffs. Figures there’d be other snobby assholes around – and figures that Erwin and his lot would be all best pals with them too. He keeps thinking about his conversation with Petra when he drives back home with Isabel, and even considers bringing it up with Erwin when they manage to catch a moment together while taking the dogs out for a walk, but in the end he doesn’t really know what to say about it, and chooses another subject instead.

“What’s the deal with you and Nile and Marie anyway?”

Levi expected to feel some kind of dread or nervousness coming off the man, but instead he catches nothing but the tiniest hint of sadness.

“What do you mean?” Erwin asks back and Levi shrugs.

“I mean I know you and Marie used to date,” he says. “I guess I was just wondering what happened with that.”

Erwin keeps looking at him for a moment before turning away with a quiet laugh.

“You’re right, Marie and I used to date,” he explains calmly. “We met in college, started seeing each other sophomore year. We were together for a year and a half before I brought her home to meet the pack. And that’s when she met Nile.”

“Did she like…” Levi starts, not knowing how to put it politely, but Erwin guesses what he means.

“Cheat on me with him?” he asks, shaking his head when Levi nods. “No, she didn’t. But she realized they were compatible, and eventually we broke up.”

“So now they just…” Levi starts and shrugs again. “Live in your pack?”

“I didn’t want to kick them out,” Erwin tells him, sighing. “It didn’t seem like the right thing to do.”

“To who?” Levi asks him. “Sounds like it would’ve been the right thing for you.”

Erwin laughs and scratches the back of his head, grimacing. “Maybe it would’ve been,” he agrees, “but I don’t know. It wasn’t their fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. It was just how it had to happen, I guess.”

“So you and Marie weren’t compatible?” Levi asks next, throwing a stick when Sesame runs over to him with one.

“For a long time I thought we were,” Erwin reveals; there’s something so sincere about the way he looks at Levi that he has to turn away, “but I know now that it was something else.”

Levi knows what Erwin means but doesn’t want to think about it. He remembers the thing Erwin said in the hotel, the bluntness of the statement: you don’t feel it. Even now it makes him shudder, makes him wonder what it means and how it feels; whether he’s feeling it right now but just doesn’t know it because he has nothing to compare it to.

“I can see that they’re really happy,” Erwin says, “and I’m happy for them. It’s taken me a while to get here, but I’m glad I did.”

“Good,” Levi says, frowning. “It would suck for you to be living with them and not be okay with it.”

“Don’t worry,” Erwin tells him, laughing. “I am very okay with it.”

They walk to the lake and let the dogs around for a moment before heading back. Halfway back, Erwin places his arm casually on Levi’s shoulders, his forearm pressed against the back of his neck, and Levi feels like humming from how good it feels. But even beyond the pleasure, he dreads reaching the end of the little forest path, and in his mind he’s coming up with subtle ways to get Erwin’s arm off himself without getting him upset. It seems Erwin has picked up on how he feels; he steps away from Levi a few yards before they’re out in the open and gives him a quiet, calming smile that Levi only barely manages to reciprocate.

Upstairs in his room, Levi lies in bed and thinks about Erwin, how he’s spent years living with Nile and Marie in his house, watching them get married and try to have a baby, all the while being alone. No wonder he made a Grindr profile – at least he got some kind of relief. The thought leads to another, to the scent Erwin carried home with him from the conference and the way his whole body seemed to have been unwound by what he’d done with her, how much healthier and more relaxed he seemed then. Levi frowns and places his hand on the scar on his neck. It’s not as if he ever thought Erwin doesn’t like sex, but he’s never thought that he _needs it_ , either. Is it something people need, once they start having it? It’s not like he hasn’t thought about doing it with Erwin – but suddenly it feels like there’s a big difference between thinking it and doing it.

He rolls onto his stomach and exhales heavily, imagining Erwin touching him – really imagining it this time, not fantasizing but picturing it: being naked in front of Erwin, letting Erwin see him, see what it does to him when he touches him. The moment they shared in the unused bedroom flashes across Levi’s mind, the way his body responded like someone’s who’s never been so much as looked at – and though it’s true, it doesn’t make it any less goddamn embarrassing. Levi grits his teeth, feeling like he’s hosting a family of snakes in the pit of his stomach.

“Fuck,” he hisses against his pillow, hitting it a few times with his forehead before settling down and grabbing his phone for a distraction and wasting time on it until Isabel comes and drags him out of his room.

“You’re stewing,” she tells him, leading him down the stairs and to the front door. “That’s what Mama calls it. You need to get out, see people.”

“Isn’t it enough that I go to school every day?” he asks her but she shakes her head.

They walk over to the pup house and sit down around the little tables in the playroom. The kids are working on decorations for Thanksgiving, making chains out of strips of red, yellow, orange and brown cardboard. Levi works with Marco and Jean, helping them whenever the links of the chains get stuck to their glue-covered fingers.

“You guys excited for Thanksgiving?” he asks them, frowning when he hears only one enthusiastic yes.

“You don’t get any presents on Thanksgiving,” Jean complains, shaking his hand violently when another piece of the chain sticks to his thumb.

“I don’t think you’re really grasping the idea of ‘Thanksgiving’,” Levi tells him, snorting a laugh. “You’re supposed to be grateful for what you have, not wish for new crap.”

“Still,” Jean argues, grabbing a couple of cardboard strips from a basket in the middle of the table. “Christmas is way better.”

 

Edith hangs the pups’ handiwork in the dining room the day before the hunt, along with the darker curtains Levi remembers from the winter months. They’ve all been working hard to get everything ready for when the rest of the pack comes over; even Levi and Isabel have been called down from their rooms after school to lend a hand to what Isabel calls The Great Feeding. The name is not out of place; it could be just the fact that it’s all indoors, but it looks to Levi like they’ve got more food prepared than they did for the fourth of July.

“Who the hell’s going to eat all this?” Levi complains to Erwin, stirring a pot of boiling sweet potatoes at the stove.

“You’ll be grateful for the leftovers once the others leave,” the man tells him. “It’ll save us a couple of days of cooking.”

“More like move it forward to right fucking now,” Levi mutters, blushing when Erwin laughs.

They start arriving late on Tuesday evening, leaving their cars all over the front yard and blocking in the hybrid, meaning Levi needs to ask Marlene to move her car to be able to do yet another last minute shop run for Edith, who only now realized they’re running out of coffee. They rob all the slippers from the mudroom and from six to nine pm there doesn’t seem to be a second when at least one person dragging a suitcase isn’t blocking up the stairs. Levi grits his teeth and plants himself on the living room sofa with Isabel, nodding at the guests whenever they happen to stop by.

At least they take over whatever still needs doing in the kitchen – though Levi learns to dislike the time he now has on his hands. It gives him a chance to remember the last Thanksgiving; just the image of Kenny grinning over his deep-fried turkey is enough to make his stomach clench. He thinks about talking to Erwin about it – he never asked the man why he came to the trailer park that night – but when he sneaks into the man’s office for a moment of peace and quiet, the question dies on his lips.

“Everything set for the hunt?” he asks instead, leaning against the door frame. “With the drone and everything?”

“Yes, everything’s ready,” Erwin tells him, yawning and stretching his arms above his head. “Is it still a lawless mess in the kitchen?”

“They were laying out supper the last I saw,” Levi says, laughing when Erwin groans. “Come on. Time to be the alpha or whatever.”

“You’re right,” Erwin agrees, standing up and stalling behind his desk for another couple of seconds before Levi calls him over. “Yes, I’m coming.”

Levi doesn’t get to bed until close to midnight after helping Ansel clear out the dishes so Edith could have a moment to catch up with the others. Setting his alarm for five o’clock feels like the worst sort of masochism – but when he takes the first steps out in the cool, crisp air and hears the frozen blades of grass crunching under his feet, Levi breathes deep, letting excitement fill his body as his wolf emerges, pushing to the forefront of his mind. Slipping into his fur feels like stepping into a pool of cool water on a hot summer’s day and Levi lets himself enjoy it, giving into that simpler side of himself and letting the world grow natural and uncomplicated, full of rules that make sense and are easy to follow.

He finds his place quickly as his wide paws find their places in the marks left behind by the others; by Erwin, who leads them quickly to their prey: a pair of old does resting on a meadow. They wouldn’t have made it through the winter, most likely, but their bodies bind the pack together as they tear at flesh and sinew and perform their usual rituals, assuming the positions: bending down or standing high, rolling over and licking each other’s snouts. Levi stays near Erwin, wishing he could be much closer – wishing he could rest his head on Erwin’s back and hear an answer to the frantic beating of his own heart, made wild by the hunt.

The alpha keeps a fast pace when he leads them back home. They emerge from the woods catching their breaths and wiping blood off their chins. Levi lingers under the trees, catching glimpses of Erwin with the opening and closing of the doors. The wolf doesn’t understand his beauty, and Levi moves it firmly aside before changing, letting only the heat of the hunt remain. He waits for his turn patiently, keeping his eyes on the tiled floor until most of the pack has dressed and shuffled past him. When he finally enters the showers, Erwin and Thomas are the only ones left. He still chooses the corner shower, gazes following the swirling of the water as it turns pink and runs into the drain. Behind him Thomas cuts off his water and exits into the locker room, leaving behind a calm that only breaks when he gets out of the building and lets the heavy front door bang shut into its frame.

Levi glances at Erwin but turns away at once, feeling too self-conscious about his own hands as they spread soap over his body. He knows he should say something, make some comment about the hunt, but Erwin isn’t talking either, and the silence feels less like silence and more like a guest you’re not allowed to chase out of the room. Levi turns his face under the shower and holds his breath, exhaling before emerging. The space feels more quiet afterwards and it takes Levi a few seconds to realize it’s because there’s only one shower running, and suddenly the thoughts of Erwin leaving and him staying makes him feel in equal measure regret and nervousness – and Levi doesn’t know which one will win out until he hears the quiet splashing steps behind himself.

He expects the touch and still tenses when he feels it, the gentle hand on his shoulder that even in its simplicity is enough to make blood rush between his legs. He doesn’t want Erwin to ask him anything, doesn’t want to hear a thoughtful half a question, so he leans back and grabs a hold of Erwin’s wrist for good measure. He knows where he wants it: on the scarred skin of his neck, tracing it, enforcing it, making it something they share, something sacred and fated rather than something violent and unintentional. He hears Erwin’s breathing beyond the water, heavy and fast, just like his own is grows when he runs his hand down to his cock. He doesn’t turn around, knowing it’s hard enough to stave off embarrassment like this: with the frantic rhythm assumed by his fist and the way his grip on Erwin’s arm tightens as he nears his climax – too fast, he feels, but he can’t slow down, especially not when he feels Erwin’s knuckles brushing against his ass, the tip of his cock rubbing against his lower back.

“Fuck,” he moans, bending his head down when Erwin starts circling the scar with his thumb.

It presses harder into his skin with each rotation until it loses its route and rhythm, just like Levi’s own hand does seconds before he crashes over, his head falling back against Erwin’s chest. He gasps for breath in the humid air, his ears ringing so badly he can barely hear the shower, or catch the quiet grunts Erwin lets out when he comes; Levi feels it on the skin of his back, a sudden warmth against the cold and wet that would make his hair stand on end if he didn’t already have goosebumps all over. For a good ten seconds neither one of them moves.

“You okay?” Erwin asks him quietly, his voice still hoarse and breathless; he repeats the questions though Levi nods.

“Yeah,” he says, clearing his throat when the word comes out as nothing more than a raspy croak. “Yeah, I’m good.”

He turns around, holding on to Erwin’s arms for support; his legs feel like he’s just finished running a marathon. When Erwin pushes his fingers into his wet hair, Levi lets himself relax and presses his forehead against Erwin’s chest, hands and arms too heavy to be lifted. He feels Erwin’s happiness; he thinks he can almost hear it in the sound of his heart beating, slow and steady – calming. He looks down at Erwin, the blond hair that the water has made darker and the cock nestled in the middle of it. He’s looking at Erwin. His naked body. He gets to look.

“You ready to go?” Erwin whispers. “We should probably–”

“Yeah,” Levi interrupts him, rinsing himself off one last time. “Let’s go.”

When they say goodnight after a quick bite to eat, Levi feels like their secret is bound into the word and the smile Erwin gives Levi from behind his mug of coffee. Going to bed doesn’t feel the same in a full house, with the little creaks of the neighboring beds and the loud snores of their occupants carrying through the walls and keeping Levi awake, keeping him reliving it until he’s sure half the touches he thinks he remembers never happened. It’s the first thing on his mind when he wakes up the next day and the second his eyes find Erwin in the crowded dining room, he feels his ears burning.

He knows better than to hope for a moment alone with Erwin; the man is in full alpha mode, greeting everyone he hasn’t had a chance to talk with. There’s not an empty room in the house and Levi decides to plant himself on the living room couch again to watch the football with Mike and Nan and a couple others – including Flagon, who Levi never thought would give a rat’s ass about any sport. He can barely hear the commentary over the noise that carries in from the kitchen and the dining room, until Marie and Nile arrive a little before dinner and an unnatural sort of hush falls over the house. Levi gets off the couch when they walk into the living room to make room for them and the baby seat they carry in. Its occupant is a whiny little thing that flails its stubby little arms around, its face screwed up like it’s about to scream.

“Goodness, she’s grown so much!” Edith gasps, dashing forward to undress the little bundle out of its warm winter clothes. “Come here, my precious. You don’t mind do you?”

“She’s all yours,” Marie huffs and laughs, her eyes never really leaving the baby even while she shrugs out of her coat and scarf.

Levi takes another couple of steps back when a bunch of people sneak forward to see the baby that Edith is gently holding and rocking back and forth in her arms. He finds Erwin standing by the door and joins him quickly.

“You’re not gonna lift the kid up like the monkey from that lion movie are you?” he asks the man, who burst out laughing.

“No, I’m definitely not going to do that,” he tells Levi, something soft and strange in the way he looks over at Edith and the baby. “I think this will do for an introduction.”

They all coo over the baby nearly up until it’s time to eat; even Levi goes over and holds the thing for almost a minute – it feels warm and _small_ – until it threatens to start screaming its little head off and he hands it over to Marie.

“Don’t worry, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t like you,” she tells him while positioning the baby onto her lap and opening a few buttons on her shirt. “She’s just hungry.”

“Right yeah I’ll just…” Levi says, getting up and taking a few hurried steps back. “Leave you to it.”

He can’t help shuddering when he walks out of the room and joins the dinner queue that’s forming in the kitchen. Marie and Nile are the last to sit down at the table and it’s only when they have that Erwin stands up to address them all, even though most of them have all but finished their meals.

“I’m not going to keep you all from getting dessert by giving a long speech,” he promises first thing, laughing a little. “I just wanted to express a little gratitude for us all being here this year – and for the new members as well, of course.” He pauses to nod at Marie and Nile who are both beaming over their plates. “My point is, a year ago the mood around this table was quite grim, and I think it would be good for us to take a moment and remember to be grateful for being able to gather together with the force of the whole pack and enjoy this meal and these days together.”

“Hear, hear,” Ansel mutters from his spot at the table, looking at Levi and smiling.

“That’s all I really had to say,” Erwin continues. “I hope you all enjoyed the hunt and enjoy the food and the company.”

A few people cheer and raise their glasses and Levi rushes to join them when Erwin sits down. Despite the memories that are threatening to resurface, he doesn’t give a thought to how things were a year ago. Instead he helps out with getting the dinner packed away and the dessert things laid out, cutting himself three slices off different pies and topping them all with whipped coconut cream. Afterwards he joins Hange and Mob on the living room couch, almost falling asleep and only getting up an hour later when Nan comes to drag him outside for a game of football.

“How about we break up the dream teams this time?” she suggests, rubbing her hands together. “Me and Erwin against Mike and Levi, and anyone else who wants to join?”

“Sounds good to me,” Mike says, punching Levi on the shoulder. “I reckon we got this.”

“You bet,” Levi agrees with a grin.

“Don’t be so sure yet,” Nan tells them, craning her neck as she peers over to the porch. “Hey Hange and Mob! You wanna play?”

“Of course!” Hange yells back, dragging a very reluctant-looking Mob with them over to the grass. “Mob especially is dying to!”

“I hate football,” he mutters as he joins Mike and Levi’s team. “All the bad memories.”

Mob proves to be one ball-drop away from completely useless – at one point Hange even uses him to score a touchdown, purposely passing the ball over to him so Erwin can snatch it and run. And it’s not the only one of Hange’s insane but somehow effective ploys: Levi can only stand still and watch when they dodge a tackle from Mike by doing a sudden forward roll on the grass and sprinting away. Their craziness seems to rub off on Erwin, whose air charts are out of control whenever Levi glances at the other team’s huddle.

“Sorry guys,” Mob tells them, hanging his head. “I told you I hate football.”

“No worries Mob,” Mike says and slaps him on the shoulder hard enough to make him flinch. “It’s only a bit of fun.”

“Screw that,” Levi mutters. “I want to beat Erwin’s ass.”

But as the clock keeps ticking, it just doesn’t seem to be happening. Despite the passes Mike gets through to Levi, whenever he starts speeding across the grass, Erwin seems to be right on his heels, forcing Levi to pass the ball back to Mike – or worse yet, to Moblit. Finally he refuses to do that, trying to outrun Erwin only to have the man grasp a firm hold around his waist and hoist him over his shoulder.

“What the fuck?!” Levi shouts, his hands still holding the ball while he wriggles around to get down. “Let me the– Hey! What are you doing?!”

Erwin turns around and jogs lazily over to the other end of the pitch, easing Levi down only when he’s in the end zone.

“Touchdown,” he huffs, breathless and panting, laughing when Levi lunges at him and tackles him onto the ground.

“What the heck kind of move was that?” Mike argues with Nan, who’s too busy cackling to pay any attention to him.

Levi struggles back to his feet and points a finger at Hange. “You know I blame you for this,” he says, bristling when Hange merely bows.

“I shall accept all the credit,” they say, hugging Moblit onto their side and turning back toward the house like they’ve suddenly forgotten every thought of football. “I feel like another slice of pie.”

Levi ignores Erwin’s extended hand and lets him get up on his own when he sees Edith out on the porch, looking over at them with her arms folded over her apron. Something about the frown on her face makes his stomach clench and when she turns around and walks back into the house, Levi thinks her steps are a little stiffer than they were before.


	6. Chapter 6

There’s a little bump on Erwin’s nose, right below the point where it meets his forehead, and as Levi looks at the man’s profile from the backseat of the car, he can’t understand how he never paid attention to it before, especially since it looks so good on him and suits his face so perfectly. He glances quickly at Edith on the passenger’s seat; he doesn’t get it from her, that’s for sure. It’s a weird thought but Levi knows if he had noticed it a year ago, he would’ve hated it, thought it made Erwin look like a bald eagle or some shit. Damn American dream apple pie guy next door. But now it makes Levi want to slip into his fur so he can lick it without looking like a fucking weirdo.

He tears his eyes away with effort, turning to take in the blurry view from his window. Snow’s been coming down hard since the morning and Levi can hear a couple of car horns honking in the distance; people caught off guard by winter again, as if it doesn’t happen every fucking year. He glances through the rear window at the trailer they’re dragging behind and the big Christmas tree on top of it that’s slowly gathering a white blanket on top of the dark green of its branches. Maybe, it more than anything else, has gotten Edith into the mood she’s in, even humming to herself in front of Levi. He’s noticed it about Ansel too; a kind of sugary excitement that he always thought was a marketing ploy used to sell holiday themed movies rather than an actual thing people feel and experience.

Erwin speaks up suddenly, to answer some question Edith has asked, and draws Levi’s attention at once. He’s noticed the man purses his lips a little when he’s thinking; that’s how he can tell when he’s giving his answers a lot of thought. He does that with Levi sometimes, but Levi’s not sure if he likes it better than the off-the-cuff replies. He thinks a lot, that’s for damn sure; sometimes Levi catches him staring at his phone without actually doing anything, like he’s gotten lost in his own thoughts while reading an article or something. He’s never seen it happen with Erwin’s actual work things; he focuses so hard on them he barely hears anyone calling his name. Levi supposes it’s what makes him such a good alpha; the dedication, the hours he puts into it, and how he genuinely enjoys it. He’s noticed it again while he’s been helping Erwin get things organized for another conference. The thought of a whole weekend apart makes Levi’s stomach clench, and he’s quick to curse himself half a second later for acting like such a fucking lovesick puppy.

“I don’t know, it seems a little overbearing,” Erwin’s telling Edith on the front seat, his eyes strictly on the road. “I’m their landlord, not their… family or–”

“You don’t have to be their family to do something _nice_ ,” Edith argues. “Maybe if you’d given a Christmas gift to the previous couple it wouldn’t have ended like it did.”

“I doubt me giving him a gift would’ve stopped him from leaving his rent unpaid,” Erwin says back. “It would’ve just been something else he got for free.”

Levi lets Edith’s reply slip past his focus and when Erwin speaks again, he barely gives a crap. He could listen to the man reading a goddamn McDonald’s menu. Hell, Levi would listen to him talking about taxes any day if that’s what he wanted to do. He’d probably zone out then too like he’s doing now and just stare at Erwin’s lips instead, imagining them on the skin of his neck, teeth nipping the sensitive flesh while his hands would clutch Levi’s hips, brush past his lower stomach and push into his underwear, wrapping around the base of his–

“You coming or what?”

Levi snaps out of his thoughts just as Isabel shuts the door on her side of the car. He unbuckles his seatbelt and clambers out, nearly slipping and falling on the wet and icy parking lot of the grocery store when he slouches after Erwin and Edith and Isabel. The loudspeakers in the store are playing Christmas carols though it’s barely December, and the displays are full of ornaments, colorful baubles and tinsel and all that useless crap.

“Oh, isn’t this lovely,” Edith says, picking up a white, crochet reindeer ornament. “Wouldn’t this look lovely on the tree?”

The rest of them nod along without saying much anything, clearly not as fired up about all the Christmas junk as she is. Over by the ornament shelf, Edith seems to snap out of her admiration for the lace-worked tree ornaments and she turns to Erwin hurriedly.

“Do you have the list?” she asks, walking back over to them. “I forgot to write down all the decorations we’ll need for the gingerbread houses.”

“Houses?” Erwin asks her back, and Levi can sense his exasperation. “Plural?”

“I thought I’d make a day of it with the pups,” she explains, accepting the piece of paper Erwin hands to her. “We can bake all the parts in advance and put them together and they can all decorate their house however they want.”

“You’ll be baking for days if you make a house each,” Erwin counters, pushing the shopping cart along. “Wouldn’t a house per pair be enough? Or a house per three kids?”

“You know I don’t mind the work,” Edith argues, already distracted by some candles on display nearby. “And I’m sure I won’t be doing all the baking by myself.”

Levi wants to tell her she can count him out, but keeps his mouth shut; he’s got more than enough to worry about with exams and essays, and the presentation he needs to give on his history project after the weekend.

They manage to drag Edith away from the ornaments and continue with their shop run, but she manages to keep shoving Christmas into the shopping cart in the form of spices and flavored tea and coffee, big red apples and candy. She even gets a few bottles of Christmas beer, whatever the hell that is; Levi ignores the sudden tightness in his chest when he catches a glimpse of the cheap brand of swill Kenny used to drink on the shelves near the fancy Yule Ale. Throughout the trip Levi sneers at most of the holiday crap – but he doesn’t mind the smell of the ginger tea, and once they get closer to the register, he throws a pack of candy canes into the cart for good measure.

“Did you want to get those?” Edith asks him, carrying a few packs of baby socks into the cart and picking up the packet of candy canes. “You know these aren’t very good for you. They’re almost entirely made out of sugar.”

“Does everything I eat have to be good for me?” Levi asks her, leaning lazily onto the shopping cart. “Can’t I just like something for the flavor?”

“Of course,” Edith tells him hurriedly and, like suddenly realizing she was being too harsh, runs a hand across his cheek. “Get whatever you want, little one.”

After she zooms off again to cross something else off her list, Levi picks up the candy canes and peers at the list of ingredients on the back. She wasn’t wrong. Twelve grams of carbohydrates in a candy cane that weighs twelve grams doesn’t sound too good.

“Candy canes?” Erwin asks from behind him, piling two huge packs of toilet paper onto the mountain of items already in the cart. “You know those are about 100% pure sugar, right?”

Levi turns to look at Erwin and feels a shudder running down his spine. Guess the organic, fair trade apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree.

“What can I say,” he mutters, throwing the candy back in with the rest of the shopping. “Not sure if you knew this but sugar tastes good.”

Erwin laughs, scratching the back of his neck. “It does do that,” he says, looking around himself and sighing before throwing another pack of candy canes into the cart. “What the hell, right?”

“Right,” Levi agrees, laughing too.

He takes a few hurried steps away from Erwin when Edith marches over with Isabel holding half a dozen cans of coconut milk. She piles them onto the register and hurries them along, joining Isabel and Levi in packing up the purchases while Erwin pays for them. Back at the house they need to pile some of the things onto the floor of the pantry since there’s no more space on the shelves. Levi’s hands itch to reorganize everything to make it all fit, but he remembers the pile of homework up in his room and leaves the mess be, walking back into the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea; the fancy Christmas stuff Edith bought, and it’s actually not half bad. He’s just about to carry the mug up to his room when Erwin calls out his name from the door.

“Could I talk to you alone for a minute?”

Levi tries his best to hide his excitement and masks his sudden smile by taking a sip out of his mug, though the tea is still too hot.

“Is something wrong?” Edith asks from the kitchen island, eyes darting up from the papers she’s been looking through.

“No, nothing’s wrong,” Erwin tells her calmly. “I just wanted to have a word with Levi in private.”

He understands Edith’s question better when he crosses the room and catches the first wave of nervousness from the man. It makes him restless too, has his mind racing trying to come up with something that would make Erwin nervous. Has he failed a class? Have they kicked him out of school for being such a fucking idiot and not even bothered to tell him? It doesn’t make sense, he’s been doing a lot better than ever before – but then, who knows what kind of standards these snobs have? Levi’s hesitation only gets worse when Erwin leads him to his office, and for a moment he’s sure the man is going to show him some email with an advance preview of his report card that’s going to say he failed everything.

“Before I ask you what I’m about to ask you, I just want to let you know that when you answer, you don’t need to worry about hurting my feelings,” Erwin starts, his hands nervously pushing into his pockets until he pulls them out two seconds later. “I said it before, I want to take this whole thing at whatever pace you’re comfortable with, so I don’t want you to feel any pressure. Okay?”

“Uhh…” Levi grunts, some demented corner of his mind expecting Erwin to get down on one knee or some other insane bullshit, until a more reasonable side kicks in and he manages to speak again. “Sure. Shoot.”

“Okay,” Erwin says, flashing Levi a quick smile and clearing his throat. “You know I have the conference coming up and I was wondering if you’d like to come there with me.”

Levi’s breath catches in his throat and he stares at Erwin, speechless. The conference. Going together to the conference. Being away from the pack, from this town. From Edith. Just the two of them, in a hotel somewhere, probably. But just as he’s about to answer, a thought occurs to Levi.

“Isn’t it a long weekend kind of deal?” he asks Erwin, frowning. “I mean, I’ve got school and everything.”

“I’m sure we could work something out,” Erwin counters. “It’s not a disaster if you miss a day or two. Unless it’s just that you don’t want to–”

“No, I do want to,” Levi hurries to interrupt him, feeling his throat tightening at the thought: the two of them, alone, in a hotel somewhere. “Yeah. It sounds good.”

“You’re sure?” Erwin asks, sounding a little worried. “I’d really love for you to come but I don’t want to put any–”

“Yeah,” Levi says again, smiling in a way that probably looks more like the grin of some Egyptian mummy that’s been dead for a thousand years or some shit. “Count me in.”

“Great,” Erwin says, wiping his hands on his trousers and exhaling heavily. “I’ll go ahead and… add you to my booking.”

“Cool,” Levi states and takes a few steps backwards toward the door. “I should… I’ve got a lot of homework so–”

“Of course,” Erwin puts in, already circling his desk to get to the laptop. “I don’t want to keep you.”

Levi pauses at the door for a few seconds to consider running back to Erwin and giving him a kiss or some shit, but in the end it feels too… something, and he leaves after uttering a quick ‘see you around’. Back up in his room he leans against his door and exhales hard, rubbing the back of his neck. A weekend alone with Erwin. Away from the pack. His heart starts racing in his chest and he pushes his hand into his pocket to grab his phone, already dialing Farlan’s number but changing his mind at the last minute. He knows Erwin’s not expecting anything – but that doesn’t mean he’s not hoping for it. Levi wonders if that’s why he invited him but discards the thought almost at once. That’s not Erwin, he knows well enough by now. But while what Erwin wants is one question, what he himself wants is a whole other concern.

Levi pushes himself off the door and runs his hands through his hair before sitting down at his desk and pulling his school books out his backpack. He lays them down and stares at them, knowing he should focus on finishing his presentation, but his mind keeps pulling up much more interesting images: of him and Erwin in a hotel room, undressing each other, falling down on the bed, actually doing the things Levi’s been daydreaming about for months. Suddenly his chest feels a little too tight for breathing.

 

That tightness returns after the weekend when he waits for his turns to give his presentation and remembers all the previous times he’s stood in front of the class, muttering about something he didn’t even know anything about to begin with. Back then most of the other students were more or less sleeping at their desks, which kept the pressure at a manageable degree, but when Levi looks up from his power point now, he sees a horde of faces turned in his direction, actually ready to listen to the shit he’s about to say. The teacher sits among them, ready to take notes, and the orange line of his pencil keeps catching Levi’s eye when he goes over his slides.

“So in conclusion, uhh…” he finally mutters, glancing behind himself at the collection of sentences he’s written down to help himself remember, “the war can be classified as having had several different causes depending on who you ask, and the main consequences were not only the eventual establishing of communist rule in Vietnam and elsewhere in southeast Asia but also social and cultural changes in the United States that included anti-war sentiment due to press coverage of the war, and also a refugee crisis across southeast Asia as well as effects of the chemical exfoliants used by US forces that can still be seen today in the nature and population of Vietnam. So uhh… yeah, that was… pretty much it.”

“Thank you, Levi,” Mr. Peterson says, clapping his hands – some of the students join in, but none of them very enthusiastically. “Could you just let us see your sources as well?”

“Oh yeah, sure,” Levi says, revealing the final slide where he has listed a couple of books and a whole lot of websites Erwin helped him find.

“Great,” the teacher tells him, scribbling something down on his notepad. “Really good work, Levi. I’m looking forward to reading your term paper on this.”

“Sure,” Levi mutters, closing the power point and slouching back to his seat.

“That was fucking boring,” Lovof mutters to one of his friends loud enough for Levi to hear it. “Has this guy ever heard of youtube – or even gifs? ‘Widespread press coverage of the war’ – yeah, so how about you show us, dumbass?”

Levi grits his teeth and ignores it the best he can. He can still hear the douchebag ranting when he waits for Farlan to pick him up after school a couple hours later.

“I mean, who the fuck is this guy, anyway?” he complains to his friends, obsessively running his hand through his Justin Bieber hairdo. “Where the hell did he come to this school from? I mean, the dude’s a ghost. He’s not even on fucking facebook.”

“Maybe he’s like an off-the-gridder,” his girlfriend tells him without ever lifting her eyes from her phone screen. “I don’t get why you even care about some random guy.”

“There’s something off about him,” Lovof says, and Levi can feel his stare as pinpricks on his skin. “It’s the way he talks to me, like he’s the shit.”

“Yeah, cause you’re the shit, right?” the girl huffs, snapping a quick selfie. “Anyway, that was like, months ago. _I’ve_ said worse things to you since then.”

“Yeah but you suck my dick so you get to,” Lovof tells her, laughing when she turns around and punches him.

“Not funny,” she mutters, marching off; he doesn’t follow.

“Hey! Ackerman!” he calls out just as Levi’s about to step into Farlan’s car; he stops on instinct. “Better keep the tow company on your speed dial. You’re gonna need it driving a trash heap like that!”

“The fuck is his problem?” Farlan asks when Levi sits down, having finished flipping Lovof off.

“Being an asshole,” Levi says, shaking his head. “Just ignore him.”

“Gladly,” Farlan mutters, speeding out of the school parking lot and towards the mall.

The Christmas mayhem is even worse there; twinkly lights, wreaths and holly, a big tree wherever there’s been enough space for one. They go around the shops so Farlan can find presents – though he wanders off the menswear sections more often than not.

“What do you think of these shorts?” he asks Levi, holding up something Levi wouldn’t have anywhere near his wardrobe in a million years; green with a pattern of yellow palm leaves.

“What the hell do you need shorts for this time of year?”

“Flagon’s taking me to Hawaii after Christmas,” Farlan tells him, smiling. “We’re spending almost a week on Maui before heading to Oahu for some shopping and stuff.”

Levi frowns. How the hell does that crypt keeper have money for a trip like that?

“Is he paying?” Levi can’t stop himself from asking, regretting the question as soon as he sees Farlan’s face.

“It’s not like that,” he counters, sighing and putting the shorts back onto the rack. “It’s not like he’s constantly buying me stuff or anything. It’s just that he’s wanted to travel for a while but never had anyone to go with before.”

“Guess that makes sense,” Levi says, trying to sound as conciliatory as possible; and it’s not as if Erwin isn’t essentially doing the same with him – though the conference is definitely not being held in Maui.

“Besides, anything I buy from the trip I’ll be buying myself,” Farlan says, taking a neon-colored t-shirt out of a rack and putting it straight back when he sees the word “bro” written on the front of it. “Have to draw the line somewhere. And it’s not like it’s a super luxury trip with like five-star hotels and stuff.”

“You don’t have to prove anything to me you know,” Levi tells him, and Farlan laughs nervously.

“Sorry,” he says. “I’ve just been having to explain this a lot lately. Because I… told my parents.”

Levi turns to look at him, cringing when he sees his grimace. “Not good?”

“Could be worse,” Farlan says, trying to sound upbeat. “They’re fine with me going on the trip at least. But they’re insisting on all this insane stuff before that, like I’m not a grown-up who can make his own decisions.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“They invited Flagon over for dinner this weekend so they can meet him,” Farlan says, rolling his eyes, “and they’re suddenly all apeshit about how many nights I should spend at his place and how long I can be out for. It’s insane. It’s like I’m fifteen or something. I’m seriously considering moving out.”

Levi keeps quiet. He never thought about it before, but him and Erwin going out of town might look much like Flagon and Farlan’s trip to people in the pack – work trip or not. It’s not as if there’s any innocent way to explain Levi going with him – and it’s not as if he’s thought the trip itself will be very innocent either. The thought of Edith’s reaction makes Levi’s stomach twist worse than the thought of getting his report card.

“But like I said,” Farlan goes on, “it could be worse. At least they’re willing to meet him. Right?”

“Yeah,” Levi agrees, distracting himself from his thoughts by checking the price of a dark green sweater. Not bad. “I’m gonna try this on real quick.”

“You’re buying something _and_ trying it on first?” Farlan asks him. “I am truly shocked.”

“Fuck you,” Levi tells him, laughing when he does.

He ends up buying the sweater and even finds a gift for Isabel in another store, a DVD of some movie about girls who play soccer or something. It takes him until they’ve sat down to get a snack in their usual hangout to tell Farlan he’s going out of town with Erwin, and in the end he doesn’t know what the hell is holding his tongue about it. He didn’t think it was such a big deal anyway – at least not consciously – but Farlan’s reaction makes him wonder if he’s been wrong to be so calm about it.

“I mean, have you two had sex yet?” he asks Levi, glancing around himself when Levi does and shrugging.

Levi thinks about what happened after the hunt and shivers. “No,” he replies, frowning and adding, “I mean, not really.”

“Do you want to?” Farlan asks next. “Do you think that’s why he invited you?”

“No, I don’t think that’s why.”

“Do you know if he got you your own room?” Levi’s embarrassed to admit he hadn’t thought about it. “If he only got one room then–”

“I don’t know,” Levi interrupts him not to hear the rest of it.

“He didn’t ask you?”

Levi shudders and shakes his head. “But it’s not like that,” he tells Farlan, taking a sip out of his peppermint hot chocolate. “I mean, he’s not like that. I don’t think he expects anything.”

“No, I don’t think he does either,” Farlan hurries to agree, “but you can’t say you haven’t thought about it.”

“I mean, sure, I’ve thought about it,” Levi admits, falling quiet and shrugging when Farlan spreads his arms. “What?”

“And?”

“And what?” Levi asks, drinking his peppermint hot chocolate. “Aren’t I supposed to take into account what he wants?”

“Sure,” Farlan says and sighs. “Let’s just go ahead and assume he _doesn’t_ want it. Because that’s so likely.”

“Well…” Levi starts but doesn’t know how to finish so he simply shrugs. “Am I supposed to see the future or some shit?”

“No,” Farlan admits, rolling his eyes. “Just… you might want to be prepared, that’s all.”

“Should I shave my legs?” Levi asks, scoffing; Farlan rolls his eyes again.

“No, but you might want to get some condoms or something,” he points out and fishes his phone out of his pocket when it starts to ring, hissing a swear when he sees who’s calling.

It’s not a long call, or a very pleasant one. Levi wishes he wasn’t able to hear Farlan’s mother’s side of the conversation; her voice sounds a lot more shrill than usual. They get into an argument when she tells Farlan he has fifteen minutes to get home or else.

“I’m Levi’s ride, I have to–” Farlan starts while Levi furiously shakes his head.

“It’s not my fault you didn’t think of that,” she tells him sourly. “You knew very well when your curfew is, and you can’t expect your dad and me to–”

“I can’t just not give him a ride home, it’d be so rude!” Farlan talks over her while Levi keeps shaking his head, saying he’ll get another ride home, hoping he’s talking loud enough for Farlan’s mom to hear it.

“It’s okay,” he assures Farlan when he finally hangs up, defeated. “There are like a hundred people who can come and pick me up. I’ll call Erwin, it’ll be fine.”

“You know, I wouldn’t even give a shit about their stupid rules but they said they’ll stop paying for my car if I don’t,” Farlan says, pulling on his coat and scarf hurriedly before glancing at his phone and swearing. “I just really can’t afford that right now.”

“Don’t worry, I get it,” Levi tells him, shooing him out of the café as soon as he’s thrown back the last drops of his latte with a grimace.

He finishes his hot chocolate before calling Erwin who turns out to be running errands in town anyway. It takes him less than ten minutes to get to the mall, but before Levi can get into the car, he gets out of it instead.

“Do you have a suit?” he asks Levi, who shakes his head, confused. “We should get you one for the trip.”

“Why?” Levi asks, throwing his backpack on the backseat of the hybrid.

“There’s a little cocktail party after all the meetings are done that’s black tie optional.”

“Well if it’s optional then why do I need one?” he asks, frowning when Erwin laughs.

“It means you need a suit,” he explains, locking the doors of the car. “Come on. Let’s see if we can find you something.”

They find a store that Levi’s sure he’s never so much as noticed before – his brain has probably just skipped past it because it looks like he couldn’t afford so much as a button in there: big windows that reveal an interior of red brick and dark wood. He feels his shoulders pulling towards his ears when they enter, like he’s afraid of being accused of trying to steal something. He wishes Erwin’s confidence was contagious, but mostly the way the man takes charge makes him feel even more self-conscious.

“A quality suit is a good investment,” Erwin explains, browsing through some jackets on a rack. “Every man should have at least one.”

“Right,” Levi mutters, brushing his hand along a sleeve of a white shirt; it doesn’t feel half bad. “So should it be black or what?”

“Black is always a classic option,” Erwin says, checking the size of a pair of trousers before picking them up. “I think it’s a good color for your first suit. It’s classier, so you can wear it to a wider range of events.”

“Well that’s a relief,” Levi drawls, “’cause I just got invited to a couple of luncheons and a gala.”

Erwin laughs. “You never know,” he says. “You’ve got your graduation coming up. You’ll need a suit for that.”

Levi fights to ignore the moment of discomfort from Erwin and shrugs just as a shop assistant swoops in out of a backroom to ask them if they need help with something. Levi lets Erwin take charge and drags his feet when they usher him into a spacious changing room.

“Just going to take some measurements,” the assistant says, guiding Levi onto a raised platform in the middle of the room and pulling out his tape measure.

Levi never knew you need so many goddamn things to make a suit. When the assistant finally leaves, he feels like the man has measured every single body part of his that can be measured without getting sued for sexual harassment. Erwin waits patiently throughout, sitting on a chair in the corner of the changing room, talking to the assistant about fabrics and other things that make no sense to Levi.

“Can’t we just get the first one and go?” he mutters when he’s pulling on the first pair of trousers out of the five the shop assistant has brought him.

“It takes a bit of time, but it’s worth it,” Erwin tells him, standing up to let the shop assistant back into the changing room. “I don’t think it fits quite right.”

“No, you’re right,” the assistant says, assessing Levi for a moment before going over the pile of trousers, checking the mystery markings on the waistband and handing Levi a new pair. “This should be better.”

“These are way too long,” Levi whispers to Erwin, having pulled them on. “Is that guy blind or something?”

“It’s an easy job to hem them,” Erwin explains. “It’s not just about the length, it’s about the fit as well.”

Levi rolls his eyes but has to admit – once the shop assistant has crouched at his feet for a good five minutes folding up the pant legs with pins – that the trousers don’t look half bad. Better than any other pair he’s ever owned in his life, that’s for sure, and once he shrugs a jacket onto a clean white shirt he’s changed into, he knows he looks better than he’s ever done before.

“I’d say that’s a pretty good fit,” Erwin mutters when the shop assistant steps outside to find Levi a tie. His voice is heavy with want that raises a lump into Levi’s throat.

“I like the jacket,” he agrees, struggling to get the words out.

“Yeah, it’s–” Erwin starts, falling quiet when the assistant walks back into the changing room, holding a bunch of ties. “I can– If that’s alright?”

“Of course,” the assistant says pleasantly. “I’d recommend the Windsor with that.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Erwin agrees, walking back over to Levi to slip the tie underneath the collar of his shirt.

“I know how to tie a tie,” Levi tells him, but Erwin shakes his head.

“There’s more than one way to do it,” he says, twisting the tie around itself. “You wear a simple knot on your school uniform. The Windsor is more sophisticated.”

“Right,” Levi drawls, doing his best to ignore the scent of Erwin and to resist pressing his face against his neck. He’s so close Levi can see the slight stubble on his face. “And people will be able to tell the difference, will they?”

“I would,” Erwin says, finishing the knot on the tie and pulling it close to Levi’s Adam’s apple.

Levi turns to look in the mirror, expecting to be blown away by how good the tie looks, but shuddering as soon as he sees himself. Something painful and ugly bubbles up: his mother’s funeral, how Kenny made him wear an ugly clip tie with a creased and dirty dress shirt and a pair of jeans. He remembers the smell of the ashes on his hands after it was done, when he sat on the stairs of the house and looked out into the woods, not really understanding that she wasn’t going to come walking out of the trees.

“I don’t like this,” he says to Erwin, pulling the tie loose from around his neck. “I look like a goddamn stock broker or some shit.”

“Okay,” Erwin tells him, his voice soothing, and Levi can tell he’s picked up on his changing mood. “We can try something else. Maybe a bowtie?”

“Like Bill Nye the science guy?” Levi asks, scoffing and stepping off the platform. “No thanks.”

“Well we can go browse a little,” Erwin says, pulling back the curtain of the changing room. “See what other options we have.”

They walk over to a wall in the store that’s covered from floor to ceiling in small shelves that are stacked full of ties and bowties. Levi looks them over, trying to shake the memory of the first night he had to sleep alone in the bed he used to share with his mom, how Kenny sat smoking in an armchair in the corner of the room until he finally nodded off. Fucking stupid. Not as if thinking about it is gonna change what happened.

“I want this one,” he tells Erwin, finally spotting something he likes on the shelf.

“An ascot tie?” Erwin asks apprehensively, looking down at the fancy white necktie Levi’s holding in his hands. “You like that one?”

“Yeah,” Levi says, finding a mirror and holding the cravat up to his neck. “I think it’s cool.”

“Sorry, I don’t mean to disturb you,” the shop assistant interrupts, swooping in from the register. “It’s actually a cravat, not an ascot tie, and I think it’s a great choice. They’re very in right now, and they’re a really easy way to make your look more casual and just a little bit more interesting which for a young man like yourself can be a better alternative for certain occasions than a traditional tie.”

“See?” Levi says to Erwin. “I’ve got like, great style and shit.”

“Would you like to see a couple of ways you can tie it?” the shop assistant – Amir – asks him and Levi follows him back into the changing room.

“Is a cravat alright for a black tie optional event?” Erwin asks him, still sounding a little nervous.

“Absolutely,” Amir tells him, unfolding the tie and slipping it around Levi’s neck. “Black tie optional – as you probably know – simply calls for a conservative tie, so as long as you keep the colors muted, a cravat is perfectly appropriate. And what’s great about it is that there are so many ways you can tie it. You can tie it over your collar or under it, so just by adjusting it you have control over how casual you want your look to be.”

“I like this a lot better,” Levi says, looking at himself in the mirror.

“It suits you,” Amir says, smiling. Probably just trying to get them to buy all that crap, but it doesn’t feel bad to hear it. He swoops in again to slip the cravat under Levi’s collar. “Don’t be afraid to play around with it a little. There are a lot of great tutorials online where you can learn new ways to tie it. You should try them out, see what you like best.”

Levi never thought he’d like something so fancy and wanker-y, but the fabrics feel better against his skin than anything he’s ever worn before and he doesn’t seem to be able to stop looking at himself. He thinks he looks taller – though it might just be that he’s not slouching his shoulders – and more grown-up, like he’s suddenly aged a good five years. And he gets why Erwin wants to buy him the suit – it’d probably be fucking embarrassing for him to take Levi to the party dressed in anything else.

“Would you be needing shoes to go with the suit?” Amir asks.

Hah. Called it. Just trying to get them to buy more crap.

“You wouldn’t happen to have anything made from eco-friendly, synthetic leather would you?” Erwin asks him, laughing a little awkwardly at the worried expression Amir gets.

“No, I’m sorry, we only carry real leather items at the moment.”

“It’s alright, I think we’ll just order something online then,” Erwin says, suddenly glancing at his wristwatch. “Aren’t you closing soon?”

“We will be closing in a little while, but don’t worry, just take your time deciding what you want – although I would personally recommend this suit, with the trouser legs hemmed and the jacket taken in just a– Do you mind?” Amir asks Levi, stepping closer when Levi shakes his head and pinching a bit of the fabric from the jacket’s upper back into his hands. “I would take the jacket in just a little bit right here. You have a very slim figure – which isn’t a bad thing – but having a jacket that doesn’t fit properly will really highlight that rather than hide it. In case it’s something you were worried about.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind looking a bit…” Levi says, letting his words trail off when Amir starts nodding furiously.

“I totally understand that. Don’t worry, this suit is going to make you look the best you’ve ever looked,” he tells Levi, smiling from ear to ear when he grabs his pincushion and starts pulling in the fabric. Levi almost tells him it’s already making him look the best he’s ever looked, but he keeps his mouth shut. “Is this your first suit?”

Levi nods, still staring at himself in the mirror. No wonder Erwin always looks so damn good, wearing fine clothes like this. He wishes he could run his hands over the front of his shirt, but keeps his arms to his sides so that Amir can finish doing whatever the hell he’s doing behind him. He feels dumb for being so pleasantly surprised by all of it; there must be some reason people like wearing that crap, after all. He feels kind of flat getting into his school uniform afterwards.

“Would there be anything else I could help you with?” Amir asks Erwin once they’re at the register – only buying the cravat, since everything else needs to be altered.

“No, that will be all for now, I think,” the man tells him, digging around in the pockets of his parka for his wallet. “I have an account under Smith, Erwin.”

Levi catches Amir glancing up from the register, smiling in a way that makes Levi feel he missed something.

“Yeah, _I_ remember,” he says and suddenly Levi catches a moment of embarrassment from Erwin.

“I assume the payment policy hasn’t changed?” Erwin asks hurriedly and Levi gets the feeling he’s trying to change the subject.

“No, it’s still the usual, ten percent of the price of the suit now and the rest once you pick it up, plus the alterations,” Amir says, busily punching buttons on the register, his face suddenly back to his earlier polite customer service expression. “So that’s ten percent of the suit plus the tie… and here is your total.”

Levi stares at the number and feels his stomach falling down to his feet, through the floor and right to the earth’s molten fucking core. Ten percent. There is no way that number is _ten per cent_ of the price of the suit. He stares at the cash register and the total stares back at him, passing well over to triple digits and making his breath hitch in his throat. Either the suit is made by tailors demanding business exec levels of pay, spinning yarn out of pure gold, or Levi’s just chosen the most fucking ridiculously priced cravat in the entire history of the universe. Next to him Erwin doesn’t so much as flinch.

“Give me that thing,” Levi tells him as soon as they’re out of Amir’s line of sight, grabbing the fancy paper back and rummaging in it for a receipt. He stares at it incredulously, both at the advance on the suit and the grand total of the tie, before turning to Erwin angrily. “Are you fucking crazy?”

“Can I see that?” Erwin asks, accepting the receipt and looking at it calmly for a few seconds before giving it back to Levi. “I don’t see anything wrong with it.”

Levi forgets to walk for a good couple of seconds.

“How do you not see how fucking insane it is to spend that much money on one outfit?” he demands, catching up to the man. “And over a hundred bucks for one _tie_?”

“Quality items can cost a little more,” Erwin says, still as calm as ever, “but they also last longer and are made with better materials. A bad suit can be really uncomfortable to wear.”

“At that price it should come with a guy who gives you a back massage at the end of it,” Levi argues, staying serious even when Erwin laughs. “I’m not kidding. You can’t spend that much money on something like this.”

“You mean I can’t spend that much money on _you_ ,” Erwin counters, sighing when Levi falls quiet. “Just think of it this way. You buy one mediocre suit, you’ll be buying five new ones in the next ten years. But buy one good suit and it’ll last you for decades. It’s more cost effective in the long run.”

“Yeah, but still, it’s–”

“You’re allowed to have nice things,” Erwin interrupts him, snatching the receipt from his hand and shoving it into the pocket of his parka. “Now come on. I think they’re closing.”

Levi keeps turning the price in his head on the drive back, only pausing every once in a while to remember how good the fabric of the shirt felt against his skin and how sexy it would be to have Erwin take the suit off him, pull the tie off his neck and kiss the skin it has left bare. He tries to tell himself that it’s none of his business what Erwin decides to waste his money on, but can’t help thinking forward to the next pack meeting and picturing someone standing up to demand Erwin to explain why he spent so much of the pack’s money on Levi of all people.

“Are you still worrying about it?” Erwin asks him once he’s parking the car outside the house, sighing when Levi shrugs. “You’re making it into a much bigger deal than it is.”

“So that’s not a lot of money to you people?” Levi asks him, giving Erwin a pointed stare when he hesitates.

“It is quite a lot of money, I’m not saying it isn’t,” Erwin counters, sounding a little exasperated now. “But again, some things do cost more and if you can, I believe you should invest a little more to make sure you’re getting a quality item that’s going to last longer and that’s made from materials that are better for the environment, and by people who were paid a livable wage for their work. A big reason why a lot of clothes are so cheap is because at some point of the production, companies have cut corners, and it’s very often in what they pay the people who do the actual work.”

Levi falls quiet to consider what Erwin has said and pictures Amir in the backroom of the store, sitting at a sewing machine. Sure, he deserves to get paid for the work he puts into it – but it only makes Levi feel marginally less ill at ease.

“You can’t just think about these things as numbers,” Erwin explains, pulling the keys from the ignition. “You also have to think about what’s behind those numbers, and whether they add up.”

Levi exhales heavily and rubs his forehead with the heel of his hand. It is a damn nice suit. Wearing it was like seeing a different version of himself, one that didn’t grow up in a trailer park, one that wasn’t raised by Kenny but who’s a normal person with a normal childhood, like Erwin or Farlan or Mike. It felt good to let go of all of that, if just for a moment.

“I guess,” Levi finally mutters, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards when he feels Erwin’s relief.

“If that’s the best I’ll get, I’ll take it,” he says, laughing.

 

The whole trouble with the suit occupies Levi’s mind so fully that he doesn’t even remember his talk with Farlan about the trip, until he gets a text from him asking about it late the following week. The message makes him stare at Erwin though he doesn’t mean to – he’s wearing a turtleneck sweater and looking so fucking good Levi’s been avoiding him all day. He wonders if he should just man up and ask Erwin about it, but when they’re left alone in the kitchen with their gingerbreads and eggnogs, he can’t get the words out, fearing Erwin would call him crazy for even thinking they’d share a room.

Instead he decides to find an alternative way to find out, sneaking into Erwin’s office in the middle of the night and walking soundlessly to the desk. He turns on the computer, gritting his teeth when the soft, white light illuminates the room much more brightly than he anticipated. The damn keyboard is noisy as fuck as well when he types in the password and opens Erwin’s email – he really shouldn’t just leave it open like that. He scrolls down, trying to catch a sender with the word ‘hotel’ in it, wondering if the little noises his ears are picking up are coming from Erwin’s bedroom or whether it’s just his own frantic heartbeat.

He finally spots it: an email titled “New reservation details” which he clicks to open, grinding his teeth for the couple of seconds it takes for the page to load. He reads through it quickly, his heartbeat speeding up with every word. A standard room with a park view. Free wifi, no smoking.

Two guests. One double bed.

Levi feels the scar on his neck heating up just as he hears a loud creak on the other side of the door to Erwin’s bedroom. He closes the email and turns off the laptop, racing Erwin’s footsteps to the other side of the desk. He doesn’t struggle to think of a lie; standing there in a t-shirt and some underwear in the middle of the night, he knows exactly what it looks like.

“Is everything alright?” Erwin asks him, emerging from his room rubbing his face, his hair ruffled and messy.

“Yeah,” Levi says, biting his bottom lip for a few seconds. “I just thought you might still be awake and then when I saw you weren’t I wasn’t sure if I wanted to wake you or not so I just…”

He spreads his arms, laughing quietly when Erwin does.

“I just couldn’t sleep,” he adds, leaning onto the desk, painfully aware of his sweaty armpits – and wishing Erwin would get the hint without him having to say or do anything.

“Something keeping you up?” the man asks, taking a few steps closer but not closing the distance between them. Too damn respectful.

Levi shrugs and fixes Erwin’s gaze, hoping the stare will communicate all the things he can’t bring himself to say out loud. The man takes another step closer but doesn’t breach the gap until Levi grabs the front of his t-shirt and pulls him forward.

“You wanna go back to sleep?” he asks Erwin who shakes his head, smiling.

Levi feels a few seconds’ worth of Erwin’s hot breath on his lips before they kiss, deep and heavy, the edge of the desk digging into Levi’s lower back as Erwin pushes him against it. He grabs the waistband of Erwin’s boxers to pull him closer, fingers brushing against the coarse hair, and just the feel of it is enough to make Levi instantly hard. He feels Erwin smiling against his lips when he notices the change and tries to swear at him; the word turns into a groan when he runs his hand up to Levi’s scar, touching it in passing before grabbing his hair and tilting his head back to trail kisses down his neck. Levi draws a hissing breath through his teeth and runs his hand underneath Erwin’s shirt, feeling frantic and wound-up, like he wants this to last forever and to get his release as fast as possible at the same time. From what he can tell, Erwin’s feeling it too.

“Fuck,” he whispers so close to Levi’s ear it makes him shiver; there’s barely enough restraint in his voice to keep it as quiet as it is.

The swear makes Levi grin, like he’s somehow waited to hear Erwin say it and it feels like an accomplishment now. He brings his hand up to Erwin’s face, locking his gaze while pressing his thumb against his bottom lip, tracing the wetness before tasting it, scrambling for a space behind himself to climb onto the desk. He tries to communicate it to Erwin, moving the man’s hands lower to grab his waist and hoist him up, but the message isn’t getting through. Levi doesn’t complain, feeling Erwin’s hands trailing upwards, toward the skin on his neck. It makes him kiss Erwin harder, almost angrily, his throat pushing out muffled half-growls that invite Erwin closer still, fingers traveling down to tug at the hem of Levi’s t-shirt, like he’s desperate to pull it off him.

“Can you–” the man breathes in between kisses, hands moving to clutch Levi by his waist.

Erwin turns him around and presses against him, – he drops a jar of pens on the floor, trying to find a hold on the table top – hot breaths making his ears flush red before he feels Erwin’s mouth on the back of his neck. Levi barely hears himself swearing; it’s like some other part of him is taking over, something that works on instinct more than reason. He feels Erwin’s hard cock pushing against the small of his back and pushes against it, arching his back, his left hand flailing for a hold on the back of Erwin’s head. The first kisses on that scar on his neck make his cock twitch, he’s aching for Erwin to touch it, to wrap his fist around it, to suck it into his mouth, fucking anything. When he feels the smallest scratch of teeth on the healed skin, Levi fears he might come from the touch and looks for a distraction, anything to take his mind off how good it feels, how tense his body is, how desperate he wants Erwin to bite him and to lick the new mark he’s made. He feels the tip of Erwin’s cock against his wrist and moves against it, grabbing a loose hold of it through the soft fabric of his boxer briefs. Erwin reacts with a loud groan that makes the hair on Levi’s arms stand on end.

“I want more of you,” he growls into Levi’s ear, making him shiver. “I want you in my bed.”

Levi tightens his hold around Erwin on instinct, hoping the touch will urge the man on and act as a wordless “fuck yes.” His mind is spinning with images of Erwin undressing him, of Erwin following him onto the bed, of Erwin getting on top of him, grabbing a hold of him, guiding Levi’s legs around his waist and pressing against him, the weight and heat of his body enough to make Levi buck up, craving something more, something tangible, something he’s never wanted from anyone else before – something he never thought he’d want.

There’s something sobering about the thought and it snaps Levi back into the moment, makes him turn around to face Erwin and move his hands up to his chest. He feels his body stiffening up, like it’s trying to decide what to do next, whether to cross a boundary or to stop at the edge of it. He kisses Erwin again, much more conscious about it now, before pulling away and jamming his forehead against Erwin’s chest, sighing heavily.

“You alright?” the man asks him, hand coming up to smooth Levi’s hair. The touch is soothing, almost as much of a relief as Erwin’s question.

“Yeah,” he replies, his voice low and hoarse until he clears his throat. “Just thought maybe we should…”

He can’t get the last words out, but Erwin seems to understand; his disappointment is only a passing thing Levi senses before caring takes over it.

“Okay,” Erwin whispers, his hand running up and down Levi’s back. “Don’t worry about it for a second. Okay?”

“Yeah,” Levi promises, lifting his head but not looking at Erwin, not knowing if he feels more embarrassed or frustrated. “I should go and… get some sleep.”

“Sure,” Erwin says, pulling him in for one last gentle kiss. “See you in the morning.”

Upstairs in his room Levi lies down on his bed and lets his mind finish what him and Erwin didn’t. Afterwards he stares at the ceiling, feeling stupid and unsatisfied and nervous about facing Erwin the next day, doing everything twice as slowly as usual to avoid going downstairs for breakfast. But when he sees Erwin, standing by the coffee maker in his navy shirt, the man simply smiles at him, following him into the pantry when Levi enters it, pretending to be looking for more tea.

“You alright?”

Levi nods, feeling relieved when Erwin does. “I told you not to worry about it,” he says.

“I’ll tell you what,” Erwin mutters, pausing to take a sip out of his mug of coffee. “I won’t worry about it, if you won’t worry about the suit.”

Levi grits his teeth for a moment before smiling and shaking his head.

“Deal,” he agrees reluctantly, pinching Erwin’s arm when he laughs.

 

The last week before Christmas seems to fly by, the house always caught in a flurry of activity when Levi gets home from school. Whether it’s cleaning, baking, cooking or decorating, Edith always has a project underway for everyone to participate in and with no more homework left to speak of, Levi has no choice but to comply. He spends one incredibly sticky afternoon decorating gingerbread houses with the pups – thankfully Edith settled on a house per three kids, like Erwin suggested – and another helping Ansel carry logs indoors while Erwin and Mike take turns splitting them. He thinks it’s a waste of time until Nan lights a fire in the living room and he has to admit that thing is damn nice and makes the whole room look much cozier than before. Levi keeps thinking about it during his last day of school, wondering if Erwin keeps a fire burning in his bedroom too. While he stands shivering on the steps of the school waiting for his ride, Levi thinks he might go for a visit to find out – at a respectable time, though, when it’s light outside and no one would think there’s anything weird about it.

“Hey! Ackerman!”

Levi turns on instinct when he hears Lovof’s voice, gritting his teeth as soon as he sees the smug grin on the guy’s face.

“The fuck do you want?” he asks, his grip on the strap of his backpack tightening just from looking at the douchebag.

“You going to see your uncle this Christmas?”

Levi can tell from the victorious look on Lovof’s face that his own is showing his confusion and horror when the instant realization hits him: there’s no reason for Lovof to ask that unless he knows. He watches as Lovof turns to look at his friends who are laughing along with him.

“You know? Your uncle?” he says to Levi, who can’t get a word out of his mouth. “The crazy meth-head who lives in the trailer park out in the woods?”

“Fuck you,” Levi spits at him, bristling when his friends howl.

“So how’d you get into this school?” Lovof keeps calling after him even when he starts walking away. “Get adopted? Picked up by some sweet old lady at the side of a road somewhere?”

“Go fuck yourself,” Levi mutters, not even bothering to try and make Lovof hear him. Fucking piece of shit snob. How the fuck did he find that out anyway?

He waits for Erwin at the edge of the parking lot, flagging him down when he drives past. He gets in the car, his teeth still gritted, barely grunting a reply to Erwin’s hello.

“You alright?” he asks as soon as Levi has buckled up. He’s not surprised; anyone would be able to pick up on what he’s feeling. “Did something happen?”

“No,” Levi says at once; it’s no one’s problem except his, and he sure as hell doesn’t want any of the liberal hippie solutions to it that Erwin would no doubt offer. “Just tired.”

“Okay,” Erwin says hesitantly, like he’s not sure whether to buy Levi’s explanation or not. “Good thing about the holidays then.”

“Yeah,” Levi agrees, turning to stare out the window at the snow swirling in the wind, telling himself that he shouldn’t care, that an asshole like Lovof shouldn’t be able to make him feel anything except fucking annoyed that his snobby ass even exists. Telling himself not to think about Kenny.

Snowball’s chance in hell.


	7. Chapter 7

The road stretches on ahead, cutting through sparse woods and piles of dirty snow, turned brown and gray by the exhaust fumes and the muck that splashes under the tires of the car. Levi looks ahead, keeps one eye on the wet asphalt and the other on the horizon where blue mountains rise out of the forest, towering over the tops of the trees. The darkness of the early morning has lifted and the road feels wider and safer now; it helps Levi relax behind the wheel. He glances quickly into the rearview mirror, sees the road is as empty behind as it is in front of him. Seems when it comes to traffic, Erwin planned the drive well.

Levi casts a sideway look at the man on the passenger’s seat before turning his attention back on the highway ahead. The digital clock above the car radio tells him they’ve been driving for almost two hours, but to him it feels like it can’t have been longer than forty-five minutes since they said their goodbyes to everyone on the porch of the house. For the first couple of miles Levi felt like Edith’s gloomy stare had followed them into the car, keeping them quiet and at a distance until Erwin cracked a joke about used car salesmen being called car-deal-ologists. Since then the breaks – like this one – that have fallen between their off-and-on conversations have felt better and more comfortable – though even now Levi can feel the silence humming with all the emotion that’s trapped in the small space with them.

Levi glances at Erwin again. He’s staring out the window, deep in thought, and Levi wonders if he’s already looking ahead to the conference and to whatever it is that he needs or wants to accomplish there. It’s a weird thought, that any part of this is work for Erwin. Levi’s thought of it as nothing but a vacation, and whenever they’ve found a moment to talk about it, it’s how Erwin has painted it too: a couple of days away from the usual mayhem of pack life, sleeping in, hitting the hotel gym for a workout, strolling down one of the resort’s nature trails. Doesn’t sound too bad to Levi, and he’s made it through the first week back at school without punching Lovof in the face mainly by focusing on the trip instead. Just as Levi’s thoughts are turning to homework, Erwin’s hand comes to rest on his thigh.

“Go easy on the gas,” he tells Levi softly. “You’re over the limit.”

“Shit,” Levi hisses, glancing at the meter and easing the weight of his foot on the pedal. “Sorry.”

Erwin doesn’t reply; when he finally pulls his hand away, the cold that rushes onto Levi’s skin in its absence sends shivers rolling down his spine. A moment of uncomfortable tightness settles down to his crotch and he shifts in his seat, hands gripping the steering wheel a little tighter than before. He tries to focus on the speed of the car and the road ahead, but the feel of Erwin’s hand on him lingers and makes him remember the kisses they managed to exchange in secret over the holidays in the rare moments when they found themselves alone. The house didn’t grow quiet until after new year’s when the last of the extended pack took their leave – but by then they’d all found out about the trip, and Edith’s dismay stood poised to take over whatever space the visitors had left behind.

The hybrid’s engine fills the silence with its gentle humming that’s nearly drowned out by the ringing in Levi’s ears when he loosens his hold on the steering wheel and tries to relax against the backrest of his seat. He can smell Erwin next to him, how steady his mind is in contrast with Levi’s own. Like he’s not thinking ahead, or like whatever he thinks is going to happen doesn’t make him nervous or excited – at least to a point where he wouldn’t be able to keep it to himself. It would be comforting, somehow, to know that somewhere inside Erwin’s as much of a nervous wreck, worrying about how the weekend’s going to go and what’s going to happen. In his hunt for distractions, Levi hears the growling of his own stomach over the constant hum of the engine, and sighs.

“I’m getting kind of hungry,” he lets Erwin know. “Can we stop somewhere to have something to eat?”

Erwin sits up straighter in his seat and checks his watch before peering out at a road sign when Levi passes it.

“There’s a great vegan diner along the route,” he says, pausing to yawn. “I usually eat there whenever I drive this way. It’s only another twenty minutes or so.”

“Can you get me a Twizzler?” Levi asks him, feeling a tightness in his stomach. “They’re in the glove compartment.”

“Strawberry or cherry?”

“Cherry,” Levi says, biting down on the candy when Erwin hands it to him.

From the corner of his eye he sees the man tearing a piece off a stick of licorice and popping it into his mouth. While he chews he shakes his head, looking genuinely disgusted.

“I don’t know how you eat this stuff,” he tells Levi, visibly shuddering while Levi laughs.

“It’s just sugar and artificial flavors,” he says, filling his mouth with the rest of his Twizzler. “What’s not to like?”

Erwin shudders again and puts the rest of the candy back into the glove compartment.

“I’ll wait for some real food.”

Erwin’s “real food” turns out to be a green smoothie and a cold noodle salad with no dressing. Levi orders a vegan BLT with fries for himself and they find seats at a corner table under a plant that hangs in the window. Levi looks around himself at the clean, pastel interior with the soft pink walls and mint-green tabletops dappled here and there with green plants in earthy-colored pots. There’s an old jukebox in the corner by the bar, giving the place a hipsters-meets-the-fifties vibe that has Levi crinkling his nose.

“This place has been a life saver,” Erwin tells him, screwing the lid onto his keep-warm cup where the waiter poured half of his smoothie. “Before it opened a couple years back, I had to bring my own lunch and eat at a rest stop.”

“The food seems alright.”

“It’s fantastic,” Erwin assures him, sipping his smoothie and smiling. “It’s so great to find someplace where you can still eat healthy foods while traveling.”

“Isn’t eating delicious junk food part of what makes vacations fun?” Levi asks him.

“Maybe for some people,” Erwin admits, “but I think it’s more fun to try different healthy dishes and get ideas for what you can cook at home later.”

“I guess,” Levi concedes, pouncing on his fries as soon as he’s done muttering a quick thank you to the waiter who brings their food over. “I’d still not trade with you though.”

“Seconded,” Erwin tells him, digging into his salad that smells to Levi to be more cilantro than anything else.

“Doesn’t that taste like soap to you?” Levi asks in between mouthfuls of his BLT.

“The cilantro?” Erwin clarifies and shakes his head when Levi nods. “Not at all. Does it taste like that to you?”

“Oh yeah,” Levi tells him, shoving a few fries into his mouth. “It’s like biting down on a Dial bar.”

“I’ve heard about that,” he replies, wiping his mouth and taking a large gulp of water. “I don’t understand it at all, though, it tastes nothing like that to me. How’s your sandwich?”

Levi shrugs, chewing up a few sprigs of sprouts. “I like Ansel’s vegan bacon better,” he says, “but it’s good. I got my money’s worth.”

“Good,” Erwin says, smiling. “We can stop here again on the way back if you want.”

Levi empties his mouth and takes another pensive bite out of his sandwich before shaking his head.

“You shouldn’t talk about it yet,” he tells Erwin, who looks across the table for a few seconds, frowning, before catching the drift.

“The way back?”

“Yeah,” Levi confirms, heat rising on his neck at the gentleness of Erwin’s smile.

“Alright,” Erwin promises. “I won’t.”

They finish their meals and Levi insists on paying, wearing Erwin down only on the fourth time refusing to take no for an answer. It feels good to settle the bill – better than Levi anticipated; to treat Erwin to something, no matter how small; to get his way with something that feels important. Levi’s still beaming about it when they get back to the car and he settles down on the passenger’s seat.

“Can you turn on some music?” Erwin asks once they get back to the road. “Pick something from my phone.”

“I don’t know the passcode,” Levi says once the lock screen lights up and types in the numbers when Erwin tells them to him. “What’s 104880? I mean, it’s not a birthday so–”

“Actually, in a way it is,” Erwin says, suddenly sheepish. “It’s the first six digits of the square root of the numbers on my date of birth combined.”

Levi turns to stare at him, the phone forgotten on the palm of his hand. “So if you ever forget–”

“I can just do the math and find out what it was,” Erwin finishes, laughing.

“That’s so smart,” Levi breathes, turning back to the smartphone and connecting it to the car stereo. “I’m gonna do that.”

He picks an album at random and adjusts the volume before leaning back in his seat. As the miles roll by, Levi finds himself staring at Erwin more often than at the landscape which – even in its beautiful variety of dark forests and blue-tinted mountains – is no match to the few strands of hair that fall over Erwin’s forehead.

“So who else is coming to this conference?” he asks just to distract himself. “Just a bunch of alphas or what?”

“Most of the pack leaders from our subsection of the county,” Erwin says. “A lot of people bring plus ones as well. You shouldn’t be the only one.”

“Oh,” Levi voices, frowning. Just like with the sushi place, he never really thought to picture other people at the hotel, even knowing it was a conference. “Okay. Cool.”

“But don’t feel like you need to change your plans because of it,” Erwin tells him hurriedly. “You can do whatever you want. You’re not required to take part in anything. Although…” Erwin pauses for a while, his lips twitching with a badly hidden smile. “I’ve got something planned for the two of us on Saturday.”

“What is it?”

This time Erwin doesn’t try to hide it, but grins at the road ahead.

“It’s a surprise,” he says, glancing at Levi. “Do you mind?”

“No, it’s…” Levi says, ending with a shrug. “Guess I’ll see on Saturday.”

“Don’t worry,” Erwin tells him, voice full of secret joy. “You’re going to love it.”

The warmth of Erwin’s smile seems to pass through the air and settle onto Levi’s cheeks. He turns to stare out the window and tries to ignore the shivers shooting up and down his arms when he wonders what the surprise could be, tries to think like Erwin. A candle-lit dinner? Ice skating? Some other romantic thing Levi would call cliched crap if anyone else did it but that makes him bristle with heat when he imagines Erwin and him doing it.

“Damn,” Erwin hisses, bearing down on the breaks so suddenly it glues Levi to the back of his seat.

The car skids to a slow but eventual stop inches from a snow-covered stop sign at an intersection. From behind him Levi catches the soft thud of their luggage shifting in the trunk of the car just as the force of the sudden stop forces his back off the seat and back into it.

“You okay?” Erwin asks him once they continue and Levi nods quickly before hissing a swear.

“Pull over,” he tells the man. “My suit was on top of the suitcases. It’ll be a fucking mess back there now.”

He can feel Erwin’s reluctance both in the taste of the air around him and the long silence that follows his demand.

“We’ll be at the hotel in ten minutes,” he finally states and keeps driving – until he spots the first rest stop a few minutes later and takes a right, sighing heavily. “Go. Save your suit.”

“Thanks,” Levi breathes, jumping out to fix the suit in its protective garment bag back on top of the suitcases.

“Crisis averted?” Erwin asks him when he’s back in the car, and Levi shoves him playfully on his arm, making him laugh. “Alright then.”

The resort is bigger than Levi expected, a high log-and-stone structure with large windows giving out to the parking lot and the lake that spreads out, frozen and empty, over to the line of trees in the distant horizon. Levi stares out at it, feels the cold wind blowing across the ice and shivers before grabbing his luggage and suit and following Erwin up the steps and into the hotel where the lobby is warm from a fire burning inside a decorative glass-enclosed fireplace in the middle of the room.

“Hello,” Erwin greets the receptionist politely while Levi’s still busy looking around himself at the leather armchairs and sofas scattered here and there and flanked with coffee tables, a couple of magazines strewn across them for the guests to read. “I have a reservation under Smith, Erwin.”

“Just a moment,” the receptionist tells him.

The rest of their conversation ebbs in and out of Levi's focus when he turns away, dreading seeing the confusion on the receptionist’s face when she’ll realize they’ll be staying together in a room with a double bed. Instead he turns his attention on a group of people he spots across the room. He catches their scents and knows: three people from two different packs – a man and a woman in their late thirties, very obviously a couple judging by the arms they’ve thrown around one another, and a fifty-something man Levi’s sure he’s seen somewhere before. They all smell familiar, like people from a certain place will speak in the same way. The younger of the men spots them by the reception and lifts his hand as a greeting, which Erwin answers quickly.

“So Mr. Smith, you’ll be in room 206 and Mr. Ackerman, you’ll be in 207.”

Levi turns around and stares down at the plastic keycard on the shiny wooden counter, the forest green logo of the hotel staring back up at him. He grabs it and glances at Erwin who’s busy picking up his suitcase and garment bag, only then remembering he never told Erwin he was sneaking around in his office in the middle of the night. Levi fixes something resembling a neutral expression on his face despite the confusion and disappointment roiling in his gut and tightens his grip on his suitcase.

“Should we go up?”

Levi nods and follows Erwin to the elevator; in its small confines, he’s sure Erwin will be able to smell all the things he’s trying to hide, but if he does, he says nothing about it.

“We’ve got a couple hours before dinner,” Erwin tells him, looking at his wristwatch. “What do you say we get settled in and take a look around the hotel? We could get going in half an hour?”

“Sounds good,” Levi says, relieved when the elevator stops at the second floor and opens to a hallway.

Their rooms are side by side straight down the corridor. Levi watches Erwin disappearing into his room before swiping the keycard and stepping into his, fumbling around for a while before he finds the light switch. As soon as he does, he hangs his suit into the wardrobe and lays down his suitcase on a perfect square spot of empty floorspace near the entrance. He walks further in and looks around the room, feeling more than a little weirded out when he spots the little chocolate on the pillows of the big double bed. He walks over to it and picks up one of the treats, popping it into his mouth while he sits down to test the mattress. It’s softer than he anticipated and when he reaches out his hand to catch himself, the sheets feel like silk under his palm.

“Nice,” he whispers to himself.

He walks back to the entrance but instead turns to the only other door in the room, peering into the bathroom, relieved to find the surfaces gleaming and spotless both on the counter and the large, white bathtub that lines the left-hand side wall. He runs a quick hand over the fluffy white towels and bathrobe that hang above the tub and smiles at the softness.

He unpacks his suitcase into a set of drawers underneath a big flat screen TV that’s been mounted on the wall opposite the bed and checks his suit for creases, relieved when he finds none. Sighing heavily, he lies down on the bed and eats the other chocolate off the pillow, trying to make sense of the situation. Did Erwin figure out he was snooping around to see the reservation? Is that why he changed it? Or did he come to the same conclusion Levi himself did – that sharing a room was a clear-as-day invitation for something to happen – and changed the reservation not to seem too eager for it? Damn respectful, “we’ll take this at your pace”, scaredy-cat idiot. You’d think coming back to make out with him every chance you got would’ve made it crystal clear to him. Levi folds his arms over his chest and huffs, thinking how much easier things would be if Erwin just went for it, just kissed him and showed him how it’s done instead of waiting for Levi to know up from fucking down when it comes to all that.

“Fuck.”

He kills some more time by flipping through the channels on the TV and checking out the contents of the minibar; nothing but shockingly expensive candy and chips and soda. He doesn’t leave his room until he hears a soft knock on the door and finds Erwin on the other side of it, smiling excitedly. He’s stayed at the hotel before and takes Levi quickly through the building; the gym and pool in the basement floor, the breakfast room, the conference rooms – if Levi needs to find him in case of an emergency.

“Though of course this trip is as much about spending time together outside of work as it is about holding meetings,” Erwin tells him. “We’re usually done with business by dinner, so there’s plenty of time for other things too.”

“Like the thing on Saturday?”

For Levi, seeing the brightness of Erwin’s eyes alone is worth dragging his ass across half the state, though he doesn’t say it. Erwin’s saved from having to come up with another sneaky reply by the ringing of his phone. It’s Edith, calling to make sure they got to the hotel safely. After a score of Erwin’s reassurances, Levi hears Edith asking after him and when Erwin hands him the phone, Levi rolls his eyes.

“I just wanted to make sure you’re both doing alright,” Edith tells him, sounding even more unduly worried than before. “Are you tired? Did you drive the whole way?”

“No, we switched halfway,” Levi lets her know, kicking the skirting board of the hallway with the tip of his shoe. “I’m okay. All unpacked and everything.”

“Good,” she says, sighing. “Is the room alright? Do you like it?”

“Yeah, it’s good,” Levi tells her. “It’s got a bed and a shower and everything.”

“Good,” she says again, chuckling. “Listen, make sure that you get enough to eat. A lot of the time on vacation you can forget to do that. Set a timer on your phone to remind you if you need to. And don’t be afraid to get something from the minibar if you feel like it. I know everything’s a bit more expensive but it’s better to pay a little extra than to let your blood sugar plummet. Okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” Levi agrees, looking over at Erwin and shaking his head. “I’ll remember.”

“Okay,” she says, sounding only marginally less worried. “If you need anything, you call me, alright? Day or night.”

“Yeah, I know,” Levi tells her, suddenly thinking of it. “Listen, Erwin looks like he wants to talk to you, so I’ll give the phone back to him, okay? See you in a couple days.”

The unimpressed glance he gets from Erwin only makes his own grin grow wider.

“Thanks for that,” the man tells him once he finally hangs up the phone, and Levi laughs.

“She’s your mom, you deal with her.”

“It’s you she’s worried about,” Erwin argues, sighing. “You’d think I’ve brought you to a biker convention or a rave or something.”

A biker convention or a rave it’s certainly not; when they all gather in a private dining cabinet later that day, Levi’s sure he’s never seen so many ordinary-looking middle-aged men in khakis and women in various shades of tasteful cardigans in his entire life. The exceptions stand out like sore thumbs: a young woman with dreadlocks, an older woman in a flannel shirt, a thirty-something man in blue jeans and a black hoodie – and him and Erwin who, especially compared to the company, looks to Levi like a Hollywood star or a presidential candidate, shaking hands and greeting people, smiling with his perfect teeth showing.

He tries to keep out of the way as much as he can – just feeling everyone’s eyes and curiosity on him is bad enough – and once they sit down in a table for six next to the older woman in flannel and a nondescript forty-something couple who smell to Levi like Petra does, he’s relieved to be out of everyone’s line of sight. He shakes the hands of the people at the table and introduces himself, letting their curiosity roll off himself as soon as he turns to look at Erwin again. The older women sitting next to them turn out to be a couple too – the hosts of the event, since the hotel sits on their pack’s lands. Betty and Scout. A weird pair if Levi ever saw one.

“How was the drive?” Betty – the alpha – asks Erwin in a tone that tells Levi they’ve met before. “You stop at your usual spot again?”

Erwin laughs. “Guilty,” he admits. “The drive felt shorter this time.”

“Must’ve been the company,” Scout puts in, smiling at Levi. “This your first time hereabouts?”

“Yeah,” Levi admits. “I’ve never really been anywhere before.”

“Well, our folk aren’t known for traveling,” Scout leans in to tell him. “I hope you like it here and that you’ll come again next year.”

“Yeah, I’m sure I’ll–”

A sudden hush falls over the room and cuts Levi’s words short. He turns to look behind himself at the entrance where everyone else has directed their gaze and spots a figure walking in, leaning onto a walking stick and the arm of a young woman; the absolute shortest man Levi’s ever seen – and that’s coming from him.

“Who’s the shorty?” he asks Erwin in a whisper that he hopes is quiet enough not to catch the ear of anyone else at the table.

“That’s Uri Reiss,” Erwin tells him. “He leads the Reiss pack.”

Levi turns to look at the man again, examines the weathered face and the slumped posture. He’s never seen a werewolf who looks so… sick. He wants to ask Erwin what the man’s deal is, but the time and place don’t seem to be right, so he stays quiet. When Uri Reiss walks past their table, Levi catches his scent and shivers. There’s something old about it, something unspoken – and something almost perfume-like that reminds him of Headmistress Reiss.

The babble of conversation continues and a few minutes later they’re all served their meals; chicken or fish for the others and a mushroom and root vegetable thing for Levi and Erwin. For a moment Levi feels envious – until he tastes the gravy on his mushrooms. It’s the most delicious thing he’s ever tasted. Earthy, salty, with time and love and skill cooked into every drop. The dessert, when it arrives, is a slice of vegan cheesecake that tastes of lime and white chocolate. Levi finishes his in under a minute and eats half of Erwin’s too. He keeps looking at the man all through the dinner, watching and listening, appreciating his every move even more than he appreciates the food. He’s graceful and polite with everyone, an obvious joy to be around; they fall quiet when he’s talking, hanging on to every word, and Levi does it along with them, not knowing if it makes him more horny or nervous.

He escapes the radiance to the bathroom, feeling too self-conscious to use the urinal and shutting himself into one of the booths instead. A few seconds later the door goes again, and Levi nearly sighs in relief for his foresight when he hears the men finding their places. Pissing in front of other people – fucking unnatural. He focuses on his own business, letting the strangers’ conversation drift in and out until a familiar name catches his ear.

“Notice how Erwin brought someone this year.”

“That was a surprise,” the other one replies, laughing. “Not exactly his usual type. And I mean, if you’re going to get yourself a twenty-something…”

“Yeah, exactly,” the first guy says, zipping up his trousers and turning the tap on to wash his hands. “And you notice the bitemark?”

“It’s not exactly fresh either,” the other man says, and Levi can practically hear him shaking his head. “I haven’t even done that to my wife, and we’ve been married for two years.”

Levi waits for them both to leave before getting out of the booth and washing his hands, staring at his reflection in the mirror. Seeing the dark circles around his eyes and the paleness of his skin that looks sickly in the cold light of the bathroom, he suddenly can’t be angry at them anymore for what they said. It’s not as if it isn’t a natural thought you get, seeing him and Erwin together. And no wonder Edith’s so sour about it too, considering how much better Erwin could have done.

He gets back to the table and drowns the gnawing disappointment by focusing on what the others are saying. Betty gives a quick speech, welcoming everyone to her and her pack’s territory and across the table Levi feels Scout beaming with pride. The evening ends soon after and Levi’s grateful for it, wanting nothing more than to disappear into his room, out of the way of prying eyes.

“Well,” Erwin says, pausing at his door, fingers fiddling with the keycard. “Early morning tomorrow. I should probably get some sleep.”

“Yeah,” Levi agrees in a mutter, wishing he had the nerve or charm or whatever the fuck it is that you need to make things happen for yourself. “Probably.”

“You should sleep in, if you want,” Erwin tells him. “And just… enjoy yourself. Do whatever you feel like doing and we can coordinate so we can do lunch.”

“Sounds good,” he says, trying not to look Erwin in the eye but meeting his gaze seconds before Erwin bends down to kiss him on the cheek, so clean and decent it makes Levi feel like a matronly nun.

“Good night.”

He nods his reply to Erwin before marching into his own room with a hiss of a swear. Fucking chicken shit, die an old fucking maid for being such a damn coward.

Levi shrugs out of his clothes tiredly, weighing the decision between a bath and a shower for a few seconds before sticking the plug into the drain of the tub and turning on the tap. As the water runs down, it turns a pale blue against the white porcelain, pure and inviting. While the tub fills, Levi stares at himself in the mirror above the counter, flexing his noodle arms like somehow they’re going to grow less pathetic in the next five minutes. Turning himself this way and that, he squints at the dustings of dark hair under his arms and between his legs, wondering if he should do something about it, trim it or get rid of it, but deciding in the end that the last thing he needs is to look even younger than he already does. He leans his elbows against the counter and leans in to peer at his face, hunting for specks and pimples and finding one almost hidden in his hairline. He spends so long squeezing it that the tub threatens to overflow, and he needs to drain some of the water before getting in not to make it splash over the sides.

Whatever he hoped the bath would accomplish, – to wash away the words he overheard in the bathroom, probably – it grows quickly obvious that he’s sitting in ordinary warm water and not a fountain of miracles or some fucking shit like that. At least when he gets out, he feels clean and refreshed. He dresses in a t-shirt and underwear and climbs into bed, stretching in the soft, sleek sheets and smiling for the first time in several hours. He turns off the light and tries to sleep, giving up after ten minutes and sending a picture of the room to Farlan, not in the least surprised to get a reply in under thirty seconds.

_Where’s Erwin?_

Levi cringes and types.

_In his own room._

He picks up the phone before it’s had the chance to ring.

“Okay. What happened?” Farlan says without a greeting and Levi sighs.

“I don’t know,” he admits, letting the confusion he buried earlier bubble to the surface. “He must’ve changed the booking.”

Farlan stays quiet for a long while before speaking again.

“Do you think it’s because…” he starts, pausing to think some more. “I mean, getting just the one room. That’s kind of… presumptuous. You know.”

“Yeah,” Levi agrees, running his hand through his hair and staring up at the ceiling. “And he’s like that. Right? All polite and…”

“Yeah,” Farlan affirms. “Honestly, I was kind of surprised when you said he’d only booked the one room, just ‘cause it didn’t sound like something he’d do. You know, based on what you’ve told me about him and everything.”

“Yeah,” Levi says again, pulling the covers over his chest. “I shouldn’t read too much into it.”

“No!” Farlan exclaims at once. “No, definitely not. He’s just… he just wants to make sure that if and when something happens, you’re 100% in charge of it. Trust me, Flagon was like that too. And it’s good!”

“Yeah,” Levi says a third time, exhaling the word and most of his worries with it. He knows Erwin. He knows what this is – him and Erwin. “Yeah. I just need to… make a move.”

But when he ends the call and catches the quiet sounds of a news program on the other side of the wall, Levi stays still, staring up at the ceiling until the room grows quiet.


	8. Chapter 8

The soft thudding of footsteps on the carpeted floor outside his door pulls Levi from his sleep, fading out and disappearing with the sound of a door closing further down the hallway. He stretches his limbs and blinks in the light that floods the room, shielding his eyes from it as best he can before adjusting. He yawns and checks the time on his phone, unlocking it when he spots two messages from Erwin, the first letting him know he should call room service so they can ready his breakfast and either bring it to his room or serve it in the breakfast room. The second message is a gym pic – of a set of weights, with not a shred of sweaty skin, to Levi’s disappointment. Underneath it Levi finds a solitary line, written several minutes after the pic has been sent: _Good thing I’ve got a good spotter._

Levi sets his phone back on the nightstand and stretches his neck before picking up the receiver of the telephone and peering down at it to find the number for room service. His breakfast shows up in under five minutes, rolled in on a fancy cart under stainless steel cloches. Levi wraps up in his bathrobe and gets back into bed to eat, his will to revel in the chance to be a lazy slob for once overpowering his fear of crumbs on the sheets.

It’s an impressive spread: a tofu scramble with bell peppers, cherry tomatoes and onions, a smoothie bowl that tastes like strawberry and mango and passion fruit, a pot of tea, three slices of toasted bread, a tall glass of orange juice and a fruit salad topped with cacao nibs. It takes Levi an hour and a half to finish it, and he keeps himself entertained by flipping through the channels on the TV, catching fragments of shitty programs that make very little sense to him. He snaps pictures of the food to Farlan whose replies communicate unrestrained envy in emoji form. The stillness and warmth remind him of the holidays, how he’d sleep in and only drag himself out of bed when he caught the scent of cookies or pie wafting up the stairs – products of Edith and Ansel’s baking mania which continued well into the new year.

And just like then, Levi over-eats and ends up feeling heavy and bloated and craving the gym to get the grossness out of his body. He sheds the bathrobe and, much like the previous night, gets stuck staring at himself in the full-length mirror by the wardrobe. His gaze travels across skin and settles between his legs, squinting and borderline searing. He’s always been aware it doesn’t look like much – at least compared to what you’ll see on a computer screen – but it’s never looked quite as small as it does now as he glares at it, knowing it makes no difference. Not as if it’s going to make the damn thing grow even a fraction of an inch.

Levi pulls on his workout gear and heads out, joining a random hotel guest in the elevator and getting out on the ground floor. He makes straight for the stairs that lead to the basement, practically jumping when a shrill female voice rings through the lobby and its owner jogs over to him; a middle-aged woman with brown hair pulled up in a perky ponytail, wearing turquoise fitness wear. When she catches up to him, she touches his arm and smiles so widely Levi could count all of her perfect teeth if he wanted to.

“There you are!” she says, glancing behind herself at a man in his early thirties who slouches over to them, his hands in his pockets. “We were trying to find out what room you were in, but of course no one knew anything, so we’ve just been patrolling the lobby like a couple of old dogs! But don’t worry, you’re just in time, I don’t think the others have left yet.”

“Uhh…” Levi starts, his mind scrambling to choose between a number of equally rude and confused replies until he settles for a simple, “What?”

“Didn’t anyone give you the program last night?” the woman asks him, clicking her tongue and planting her hands on her hips when he shakes his head. “You know, I don’t want to say anything, but it is just like Carol to…” she says, biting her teeth together and shaking her head, as if she’s telling herself not to do something, before turning back to Levi and clutching his arm quickly. “You know what? Better late than never, right?”

“Right,” Levi agrees in a half-answer, half-question that the woman seems to take as a firm affirmation.

“Us plus-ones are checking out one of the nature trails,” the man fills in, picking up on Levi’s confusion. “You should tag along – but it’s not like you have to.”

“Well…” Levi starts, turning to look at the stairwell behind him. “I was thinking I’d hit the gym.”

“Or!” the woman says, looking around at the two of them, her head bobbing up and down between Levi’s 5’3” and the man’s 6’1”. “You could come hike with us. Get some exercise, some fresh air, nature… Beats the gym if you ask me.”

Levi turns to look out the window at the frame of white the snowdrifts paint around the blue ice of the lake and catches a drift of fresh air that passes through the lobby when someone opens and closes the main door. Through the windows he can also see a group of women huddled together by the porch, all in some variety of athleisure wear and hiking boots; about a dozen of them, and they all seem busy enough catching up with each other.

“I guess it could be alright,” he finally surrenders to the obvious and enthusiastic joy of the woman, who introduces herself as Sharon once Levi gets back to the lobby after a quick change of clothes.

“Come on, let’s go and meet everyone.”

They walk out and join the rest of the group who are chatting noisily until Sharon speaks up and they go around telling Levi their names, which go by so fast all he catches is that there are two Carols and only one other guy, called Tim – the one who ambushed him with Sharon in the lobby. They set out on their hike soon after, with one of the Carols leading, holding a shockingly inaccurate map she got from the hotel reception – less because they’ll need it and more to stave off suspicion, Levi guesses. The trail turns out to be well-marked and easy to follow even if they weren’t able to smell the human activity that’s taken place along it for ages.

After the first half-mile, Levi has to admit Sharon may have been right; the hike seems to beat the gym, even if it’s a lot noisier than he’d opt for. The air smells clean, fresh like frozen pine needles with the perfume-like sweetness of decay running as an undertone below the frost and snow. The trees along the trail are old, growing moss beards that hang from their trunks and branches and shiver whenever a cold breeze finds it way past the forest from the open lake beyond. There are prey animals hiding in burrows a little ways off; their scents make Levi’s wolf stir in his mind.

They keep a good pace – though not as fast as Levi would like – and reach the hills on the other side of the lake about an hour later. Levi keeps catching bits and pieces of conversations from his spot at the end of the column, excited chatter and gossip, even bits and pieces of the football match commentary from the headphones Tim has slapped on his ears a quarter mile into the hike. Everyone’s in high spirits, clearly happy to see each other again and exchange news; Levi leaves them to it, enjoying the nature and the fact no one’s paying any particular attention to him – until they get to a log-built lean-to on top of a hill and take seats in a circle around the fire that Scout has gone ahead to light for them. Suddenly it seems everyone’s eyes are shifting over to Levi more and more often.

“We’ve got tuna salad and chicken salad – and two chickpea ones for the vegetarians,” a blonde lady named Daphne raises her voice, pulling sandwiches out of a cooler bag. “Who wants what? And who brought drinks?”

“I’ve got tea,” Heather – the woman with dreadlocks - says, lifting a large thermos. “Did someone else bring coffee?”

“Here,” Linda answers, pulling out a similar thermos. “And I got something else as well.”

She holds up two bottles of wine and laughs, and the women laugh with her. Levi shifts in his seat and picks out a sandwich when the plastic container makes the rounds, accepting a paper mug of tea from Heather with a quick thanks. When Sharon asks him if he wants red or white wine, he shakes his head and refuses politely; it takes her a moment to understand why.

“Oh gosh, I didn’t even think,” she says, passing the bottles over to Daphne. “How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

His reply seems to come as a relief, loosening up her earlier anxious expression.

“It’s just a couple of years,” she says, waving her hand. “You’d be allowed to drink in Europe. You sure you don’t want any?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Levi assures her and to his relief she lets it go without insisting any further.

“I sometimes forget how much you guys like sticking to the rules,” she says instead, sipping her wine and smiling. “Though I guess you make exceptions too.”

“Uhh…” Levi hesitates for a moment, staring into his cup of tea before shrugging. “I guess.”

“Can I just say, it’s so nice to have someone from your neck of the woods come to one of these things again,” one of the Carols joins in just as Levi bites into his sandwich. “Besides Erwin, I mean. How is Edith? How’s everyone?”

Levi hesitates for a few seconds again, using his full mouth as an excuse to get a hold of the situation and try and think of things that a normal person would say to a question like that.

“Edith’s fine,” he finally replies. “Marie had a baby a couple of months ago so she’s got her hands full.”

“Oh, that’s right, they finally had a baby!” Carol exclaims, letting out a long, breathless ‘awww.’ “Be sure to tell them we all said our congratulations – though I think most of us did send something–”

“To Nile and Marie?” Daphne puts in, nodding when Carol does. “We got them a care-package and a bunch of cloth diapers. How anyone has the time and energy is beyond me but hey, have to respect their way of doing things.”

“I think it’s really wonderful,” Heather says, smiling softly. “If I ever have kids, I hope I’ll have the resolve to put in the extra work.”

“Oh, honey, it’s not just about _you_ putting in the extra work,” Daphne tells her, a little condescendingly in Levi’s opinion. “It takes the whole pack to raise a baby. The trouble is getting everyone else to give as much of a damn as you do.”

“Though I’m sure that’s not an issue in _your_ pack,” Carol says, addressing Levi again. “From what I’ve heard all of you are pretty happy to live that kind of… conscious lifestyle? Environmental… I don’t know what you call it.”

They all fall quiet, looking at him, and it still takes Levi a moment to realize they’re waiting for him to speak.

“Uh, yeah,” he eventually manages to grunt, shrugging. “I guess most of us don’t mind it.”

“I think it’s really great, what you guys are doing,” Heather tells him, sounding so friendly and earnest that Levi feels a wave of heat on his face. “It’s really admirable how you’re all so committed. Especially with the veganism, it’s really–”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s all good for the environment, it’s really fantastic and inspiring, we get it,” Sharon interrupts, laughing and apologizing to Heather before turning back to Levi. “What _I_ want to know is… What’s the deal with you and Erwin?”

Suddenly Levi can feel all the attention in the circle pooling over to him when even the rest of the group turn to stare, putting down their phones and grabbing their paper cups of wine as if they’re preparing for something. He feels heat crawling up his neck when he meets Sharon’s expectant gaze.

“What do you mean ‘the deal with me and Erwin’?” he asks to avoid giving an answer and to buy himself some time. Is it really so obvious, even with the separate rooms, that there’s something more to what they have?

“Well,” Sharon starts, sipping her wine and smiling conspiratorially, “you’re the first person Erwin’s ever brought to a meeting with him and that’s… usually an indication of something.”

“Like what?” Levi goes on asking to keep from starting to blurt out some haphazard nonsense about how him and Erwin are just friends or how he doesn’t know what him and Erwin are – and it’s not as if it’s any of their business anyway. Fucking nosy hags.

“I mean, look around you,” Sharon goes on, sharing knowing looks with a few of the women in the circle. “All of our husbands – or spouses, sorry Tim and Alice, Scout – are at the meeting right now. It’s not really the type of thing you bring a friend to.”

“And… I don’t mean to always be the one who points out the elephant in the room but…” Daphne joins in, a little hesitantly. “The bite.”

“It’s just for the pack thing,” Levi points out hastily, and some of the women nod, as if relieved. “It’s just to join the pack. It’s nothing–”

“I mean it’s not as if we didn’t hear about that,” Sharon exclaims, looking around at her friends who are nodding along. “We all heard about that. It’s so unusual, you know, to do it like that and to a minor as well, so it went around pretty quick.”

They all fall quiet and stare at him again, and Levi can feel sweat pooling under his arms. It only occurs to him then that the others could be expecting him to explain the whole thing, to give a full account of what happened as if it’s any of their goddamn concern. Just when he’s about to tell them all to mind their own fucking business, Scout speaks out from her spot on the other side of the circle.

“What is this, an interrogation?” she asks, laughing. “Come on, Sharon. I know you mean well but give the kid some space. That stuff is kind of private, don’t you think? And he’s known you all for what, five minutes?”

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” Sharon yelps, clutching Levi’s arm again for a few seconds. “I didn’t mean to pry, I really didn’t. I just get so curious! Scout’s totally right though, I didn’t mean any offense or anything.”

“Right.”

“It’s just not every day that someone changes to another pack the way you did,” Sharon goes on, like her mouth is entirely beyond her control. “And you Ackermans, you’re kind of… I mean, you sure like keeping to yourselves, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Levi agrees, sounding a little gruff even to himself. “That’s just what we’re like.”

She seems to get the hint then, nodding quietly for a moment before her mouth starts running again.

“We’re all just really curious about you,” she says again, laughing. “And well, a lot of us are curious about Erwin too. I mean, when we all get together, have a little wine, we just talk about _everything_. And since Erwin’s never brought anyone before, we’ve never really had a source to ask about him and his… uhh… I mean, to learn to know more about him, as a person.”

“She means sex,” Daphne clarifies, snorting a laugh when Sharon slaps her on the arm.

“I do not!” she objects shrilly, but it’s obvious she’s lying and even she laughs while Levi feels his armpits sweating again. “I mean, we do talk about that, I’m not going to pretend that we don’t. But that’s just natural, right?”

The conversation finds a new path from there and Levi relaxes, going back to his tea and sandwich. He listens a little absently while the women exchange gossip and talk about the goings on in their respective packs, exchanging news so easily Levi can tell they all know a lot about each other’s lives and keep in touch regularly. He wonders if Edith still does that, if it’s something that’s expected from the person who gets together with the alpha. They all seem to embrace that role – even Tim who chats happily enough with the rest of them, abandoning his football game. Sitting there quietly by himself, growing more bored by the minute, Levi starts to think longingly at the gym, realizing if he had just stuck with his original plan, he’d be alone in his room right now instead of out here, freezing his balls off listening to a bunch of wine moms complaining about their mothers-in-law. His only consolation is that the attention that wracked his nerves before stays directed elsewhere – until his phone rings and he steps away from the circle for a shred of privacy.

“Are you at the gym? I came by your room but you weren’t there,” Erwin asks him after a quick greeting, and despite feeling Sharon’s gaze on the nape of his neck, Levi’s relieved it’s him and not Edith.

“Sorry, I should’ve texted,” he apologizes quickly, rubbing the scar and kicking the frozen ground with the tip of his shoe. “A bunch of us came to check out the nature trail and someone brought lunch, so.”

“Well it’s good you got something to eat,” Erwin says; Levi can hear his smile. “I guess I’ll just head out to lunch with the others and see you later.”

“Yeah, I don’t think we’re going to be a lot longer,” Levi says, glancing behind himself at the circle where the sandwich container lies empty and the wine bottles are getting there too. “I’ll see you when we get back.”

“Was that Erwin?” Sharon asks as soon as Levi sits back down – as if she wasn’t listening the whole time. “Was he checking up on you?”

“We’d planned to have lunch,” Levi explains in the shortest way he can think of and turns to Heather for a refill on his tea, feeling more than a little relieved when she pours out the last drops from her thermos.

They start heading back to the hotel soon after and Levi lags behind to help Scout put out the fire while the others mill around to find a place on the column that’s forming on the trail. When he starts shuffling along after them, Scout matches his pace instead of catching up to the others.

“I hope that whole thing by the fire there didn’t put you off this trip,” she says to Levi, sounding genuinely worried. “They’re all good people, but they can talk a little out of their asses sometimes.”

Levi glances at her and laughs quietly.

“Not like I expected I’d have to answer a bunch of questions,” he mutters and she nods along.

“And you don’t,” she assures him kindly. “You don’t owe anyone any explanations or anything. Whatever it is, it’s your business, and you get to decide what to say about it and to whom. Sharon just gets a little excited. Her pack’s kind of heavy on the masculine energy right now so being around other women can get her a little riled up.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

He draws a deep breath and lets his shoulders relax. The air is heavy with the smell of pine and ice and piercing through them comes Scout’s scent: a mix of the damp earth under the trees and a kind of calm self-certainty Levi’s never felt even on Edith or Ansel. He looks again at her, only now taking any real note of how she looks, of her thin-lipped mouth and heavy brows and the mousy gray hair that’s nearly as short as his own. Her body is what Levi’s always imagined the word ‘robust’ means, with wide shoulders and thick legs, and Levi’s sure she could out-walk him any day of the week in her size ten hiking boots.

“You live somewhere near here?” Levi asks her and she nods.

“For almost thirty years now,” she says, smiling. “Me and Betty founded the pack back in ’89. It wasn’t much bigger than a house and a backyard to start with, but we’ve grown from there. The square mileage we’ve got now is more than enough for our bunch.”

“So is it a small pack or what?”

Scout laughs heartily. “You could say that,” she agrees readily. “We’re an all-female pack – and all of us are mine and Betty’s sort, if you get what I mean. There aren’t huge numbers of us to begin with – and the better things get for the likes of us, the less need there is for a safe place like what we offer.”

“What do you mean, a safe place?” Levi asks and for a moment Scout looks confused.

“Things didn’t use to be so good back in the day,” she explains briefly and Levi can sense the hint of pain that pierces through, like an old wound that’s suddenly been reopened, if only for a second. “One of the reasons why Betty and I started the pack – to have some place where no one would harass us and where we could be what we are freely and openly.”

Levi nods along, wondering why he never really thought of that before, that being different could be a bad thing in other packs too, not just in Kenny’s. He never really considered that he lucked out with the Smiths in finding some place where people don’t mind that where most others would. He’d always assumed Kenny was more the exception than the rule – and he hadn’t really thought much about how things must’ve been before, twenty years ago, or even ten years ago.

“Your people seem like a good bunch,” Scout comments and Levi doesn’t know why it feels so good to have her call the pack his people. “Betty’s gone vegan crazy with all the stuff Erwin’s been saying at the meetings about the environment and stuff.”

“Yeah, he can be pretty convincing with that,” Levi agrees, imagining Erwin giving his presentation, uncharacteristically emotionally, like he was that night in the motel.

“So he convinced you too?”

Levi shrugs. “I guess,” he admits, scratching the back of his head. “I don’t really think of myself as a vegan, I’ll pretty much eat whatever’s offered. But if there’s a vegan option, most often I’ll just have that one.”

“Is it the environmental aspect of it that’s–”

“Yeah, it’s definitely that more than anything else,” Levi agrees. “I mean, it feels kind of weird to be in it so that cows won’t die and shit and then go hunt and eat some deer in the woods the next day, you know? But I think it’s really shitty what we’re doing to the planet, all the animals going extinct and all that.”

“I get that,” Scout tells him and sighs. “It takes more than just going vegan to make a change – though I guess that’s not a bad place to start.”

They keep talking on the way back to the hotel, about the environment and the nature on Scout’s pack’s lands, which slope up a mountainside about twenty miles south of the resort. They only catch up to the others when they finally walk into the lobby and find them all gathered there, discussing the game plan for the rest of the day – as soon as Levi hears Sharon say ‘spa treatments’, he nods a wordless goodbye to Scout and sneaks past the group, sighing with relief when the doors of the elevator close before anyone’s had the chance to notice he’s gone. He’s barely past Erwin’s door when it flies open and the man pokes his head into the hallway, stopping Levi in his tracks before he reaches his room.

“You’re back.”

“Yeah, we just got here,” Levi says, folding his arms over his chest. “They had some other stuff planned too but…”

“Not your thing?” Erwin guesses, nodding and smiling. “I could actually use your help with something, if you’re up for it. Could provide an excuse if anyone’s wondering where you went.”

“Something to do with the surprise today?” Levi asks, frustrated by his dissatisfied curiosity when Erwin shakes his head.

“I was wondering if you could listen to my presentation, tell me what you think,” he says; Levi senses a hint of sheepish embarrassment coming from him. “I’m giving it in an hour and I’d love to hear your opinion before that.”

“I’m not like, an expert or anything,” Levi points out rather uselessly, “but yeah, I want to hear it.”

“Great,” Erwin says and smiles, holding the door open for Levi to walk through.

It feels strange, being in a space where Erwin sleeps, where he has slept only a handful of hours before. The bed is unmade and carries the man’s scent in the sheets and bedding, so strong that it fills Levi’s mouth with saliva when he sits down awkwardly at the edge of the mattress. Erwin walks past him to grab his laptop, drawing Levi’s eyes to the pile of clothes on the floor by an armchair; the sight of the black boxer-briefs on top of it makes him shudder.

“I’ll have a bigger screen in the conference room,” Erwin tells him, peering at the computer screen, “but I hope this will do for now.”

He sets the laptop on top of the dresser in front of Levi, revealing the first slide of his powerpoint presentation that displays the title “Environmental protection initiatives for small to mid-sized packs in the pacific northwest: an updated overview.”

“Catchy,” Levi comments, relaxing when Erwin laughs and grabbing Erwin’s uneaten pillow-chocolates off the nightstand.

“Go easy on me,” Erwin asks, clearing his throat after fighting the wide smile off his lips.

Levi eats his chocolates while listening, eyes glued to the man’s face when he clarifies statistics, narrates numbers and emphasizes percentages, appealing both to his listeners’ greed and their senses of charity and decency. Halfway through he grows upset by how much plastic the pack uses and vows to be there for every shop run to make sure people find and make use of all the alternatives. In the end Levi isn’t sure if it’s a good presentation or not, objectively speaking, but he knows he has loved every word, every syllable, every sound that has come out of Erwin’s mouth; he stares at it while he speaks, remembers how soft Erwin’s lips are, imagines them trailing over the scar on his neck.

“It’s great,” he tells the man once he shuts off the powerpoint, his voice hoarse until he coughs to clear it. “Yeah. It was… great.”

“Good,” Erwin says and sighs. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“Yeah,” Levi speaks again, his ears growing hot when Erwin looks at him. “Yeah. I did. Enjoy it.”

They fall quiet, both stealing looks at each other instead of meeting each other’s eyes, the air growing heavier to breathe. Suddenly Levi’s much more aware of the feel of the sheets against the palms of his hands.

“So when’s the surprise supposed to happen?” Levi asks to chase away some of the heat that’s gathering in the room.

“Right after the meeting’s over,” Erwin tells him, sitting down next to him on the bed and pinning his hands between his knees. “It shouldn’t be longer than a couple of hours.”

“So right after that?” Levi confirms, barely hearing himself from how badly his ears are ringing.

“Yeah,” Erwin says, quietly and gently. “I’ll come and fetch you from your room. Okay?”

“Okay,” Levi agrees, exhaling so loudly that it makes Erwin amused and curious, though he doesn’t say anything.

Levi follows him from the corner of his eye when he glances at his watch, something in his mind screaming for his hands to move, to grab a hold of any part of Erwin and pull him down on the bed. Just get it over with, stop being such a fucking nervous wreck and just do it. It’ll be easier the second time, he knows, when he’s already crossed the line and seen what’s on the other side of it.

“How long till your meeting?” Levi asks, the heel of his left foot drumming a nervous beat against the carpeted floor.

“Fifteen minutes.”

And it’s a relief. A fucking disappointment and a relief all wrapped into one again – since things making you feel just the one thing is impossible, apparently. Messed up fucking brain. Make up your damn mind.

Not that they couldn’t get it over and done with in fifteen minutes. Hell, it would barely take him a minute. But the relief tells him it’s not something he wants to get over and done with, after all.

“You should kiss me.”

Levi doesn’t look at Erwin when he turns to him, surprised by the statement, his poorly-contained excitement buried under a layer of polite restraint.

“You think so?”

Levi meets Erwin’s gaze and nods, already pulling him down onto the bed by the time their lips touch. His body’s reaction is instant and painfully obvious on the front of his sweatpants but he does his best to ignore it even when he presses closer to Erwin, easing his hold on the collar of the man’s shirt only when he feels his hands on him. Erwin’s breath is hot against his mouth and it makes him arch off the mattress and towards the heat. When he feels Erwin’s tongue against his own, a low moan pushes out of his throat and tightens Erwin’s lips into a smile.

“God, I love that sound,” he whispers, and Levi’s ears burn hot.

“Shut up,” he gasps, enforcing the command by kissing Erwin harder.

Levi gets up on his elbow and leans over Erwin, pushing his hand into blond hair, surprised at the thickness and coarseness of it. He lets his lips wander down to Erwin’s neck, his body burning when he hears the man gasp and realizes he caused it. His eagerness pours into his hands that squeeze creases onto Erwin’s shirt and smooth them out seconds later, testing the tightness of the muscles underneath. Time slips away as the pleasure builds, growing into an ache that presses on Levi’s groin and makes his moves frantic and sloppy. He wants to straddle Erwin, to feel the man’s impatience through his hips, to feel the rush of power that follows the knowledge that he can make Erwin want him – that he can decide what becomes of that want. But before he gets a chance to, Erwin sits up, looking at his watch and swearing.

“I’m late,” he says, standing up and closing the laptop before shoving it into a bag and running a trembling hand through his hair. “I need to–”

“Yeah,” Levi agrees, standing up too, smiling when he sees the noticeable swelling on the front of Erwin’s trousers. “You might want to adjust that.”

Erwin swears quietly and exhales while Levi picks up his coat and gloves and leaves the room with a quick ‘bye’. He hears Erwin’s hurried steps in the hallway a minute later, leaning onto the door of his own room and breathing heavily. He needs to get off, wants to and doesn’t want to. It feels like a consolation prize now – but even so, it barely takes him two minutes.

Afterwards Levi has a quick shower to wash the smell off himself. Stepping out of the tub, he stops in front of the mirror to examine his body again, the mess of black hair between his legs drawing his gaze and holding it. He’s done the math countless times before, calculated national averages and measured himself up to them, always equally relieved to find he’s a good half an inch past the standard. But still, it’s easy to feel inadequate with someone like Erwin – in this, as well as a hundred other things. Mainly in this now, considering the circumstance.

Not as if staring at it is going to make it get any bigger, though.

Levi sighs and shrugs into a bathrobe, padding across the room and climbing onto the bed. There’s nothing on the TV but he leaves it on and lowers the volume until it’s a gentle background murmur. It’s a slow two hours; the first time he’s felt bored during the trip. When he hears a soft knock on the door, Levi practically jumps out of bed, his body full of restless energy.

“You ready for the surprise?” Erwin asks him, smiling excitedly when Levi nods. “Good. I’ll meet you at the elevator in two minutes. Wear the warmest thing you have.”

“Got it,” Levi tells him, already excited about the prospect of spending time outdoors.

He pulls on a pair of long johns under his sweatpants and steps into his winter shoes before shrugging into his coat and pulling a beanie onto his head. He’s already sweating when he gets to the elevator where Erwin is waiting, wearing a similar array of outerwear and a poorly-controlled grin. They go down to the lobby where Erwin walks straight to Betty and Scout by the reception.

“All good to go?” Betty asks him quickly, glancing at Levi and nodding. “Let’s get this show on the road then.”

They get in the hybrid and follow Betty and Scout’s station wagon out of the hotel parking lot and onto the main road, leaving it soon after and turning onto a bumpy dirt trail that leads them through the woods towards the mountains in a gentle uphill rise. Levi steals glances at Erwin out of the corner of his eye, trying to settle the battle between his curiosity and wanting to let Erwin keep his secret for a little bit longer. He senses the man’s excitement – like he’s watching Levi unwrapping a present.

After what feels like an hour, the trail opens up to a spacious yard in front of a large, one-story log house. While Erwin parks the car, Levi peers through the car window, catching a couple of outbuildings by the woods. When he gets out of the car, the smell of the place overwhelms him for a few seconds; spiced, baked apples being made in the kitchen, smoke rising from a chimney, curiosity from a few people whose faces Levi catches in the windows – and over it all, an overpowering scent of women.

“You get the snowmobiles ready, I’ll go and fetch us something to eat,” Betty calls out to Scout, jumping up the stairs and stomping her feet before disappearing into the house.

Levi and Erwin drift closer to Scout when she marches over to the first of the outbuildings to pull the bright blue tarpaulin off two snowmobiles. Levi wastes no time in running forward.

“Can I drive one?”

“You ever driven one of these before?” Scout asks, scratching her forehead hesitantly until Levi tells her he’s got a dirt bike back home. “Well then yeah, sure. These things aren’t even half as complicated as that.”

Levi helps Scout move the snowmobiles to the center of the yard while Erwin watches on, hiding his nervousness under a gentle smile. When Betty re-emerges from the house, she’s carrying four helmets which she distributes among them before putting one on and climbing behind Scout on the snowmobile. When Levi feels Erwin settling tight against his back, a flash of arousal pools into his lap, making him tighten his grip on the handlebars.

“You good?” he asks in a shout over the roar of the engine, relaying the a-ok to Scout and following her out of the yard over to the edge of the woods where snowmobile tracks guide them past the trees.

They ride for so long that Levi’s hand grows stiff on the throttle, winding their way up the ever steepening foothills for as long as they can before leaving the snowmobiles behind and continuing on foot. Wherever the cover of trees grows thin or disappears, the snow piles on ankle-deep, and they all grow breathless in a matter of minutes. Levi keeps raising his gaze from the snowy ground to see the view of the valley beyond the trees, the white expanse dotted here and there with houses and woods, roads running like scars across the clean surface. The air is fresh and pure, much better than it was on the nature trail, even, and when Erwin walks past him, Levi whispers a quiet thank you that has the corners of Erwin’s mouth nudging upwards.

They’ve just decided to make camp and light a fire on the edge of the woods when Levi hears it: a low, piercing howl that cuts through him and makes his heart beat like mad in his chest. It’s answered in a moment by other voices, a chorus confirming they’ve received the message of their presence. He looks around at the others, catching the soft smiles from Betty and Scout to Erwin.

“Nothing gets past Guinevere,” Betty comments, stoking the fire.

It takes all of Levi’s self-discipline not to jump up the second he sees Scout pulling a pair of binoculars out of her backpack. She nods for Levi and Erwin to follow and walks past the tree line, pointing out the direction when Levi lifts the binoculars onto his eyes, his hands nearly shaking. The dark green branches of pines swish past his field of vision for a while until he catches a glimpse of gray fur and pauses, following the wolf as it stops to smell the air before continuing through the snow. He scans the area behind it, glimpsing a tail here and a snout there, gliding through the trees like shadows. He hands the binoculars to Erwin and shields his own eyes with his hands, peering in the direction but making out nothing but the blur of treetops rising from the snow.

“They’ll probably come and take a closer look at us,” Scout tells him just as another howl cuts through the air. “They usually do.”

Levi nods, all lost for words, and accept the binoculars again when Erwin hands them over. He finds the pack after floundering for precious seconds and keeps his eyes on them until they disappear into the woods.

“Guess Erwin didn’t mention we run a conservation center,” Betty comments when they return to the fire, laughing when Levi shakes his head. “He told us you’d be excited.”

“So they get to be like…” Levi starts, thinking about his wolves at the zoo, in their small enclosure, being stared at. “Are they free to come and go like they want?”

“We’ve had to put up fences to try and keep them on our land,” Scout explains, pulling a thermos out of her pack. “It’s for their own good, and it’s not like they’re lacking space to roam around – though even so, it doesn’t feel good to think of them as being fenced in.”

“Some folks around here won’t hesitate to shoot a wolf as soon as they see one,” Betty adds, shaking her head and throwing another log into the fire. “They don’t give a rat’s ass about the ESA listings and protections and what have you. A couple of them have made it clear if they find a hole in the fence, they’ll come through it themselves to finish off the pack, private property or not.”

“The delisting was an absolute disgrace,” Erwin says, and Levi can feel his anger rippling through the air, as warm as the fire. “A population of a couple hundred and suddenly that doesn’t mean a species is endangered? Give me a break. Just another sign of the power that animal agriculture holds. Politicians holding on to their money sources by whatever means necessary. It’s absolutely disgraceful.”

“I hear you,” Scout says, sighing. “But at least there are more places like this now – and there are populations at all for us to fight over.”

Another howl breaks the air much closer than before, as if in a response to Scout’s words and the wolf in Levi stirs, aching to run free. The conversation starts drifting in and out of his focus while his eyes scan the forest, examining the lengthening shadows under the trees for a sign of movement. His ears prick up too though he knows he won’t hear them coming – and he doesn’t. In the end they sneak up on them soundlessly, stopping a good dozen yards away to observe them, padding restlessly back and forth. They’re not used to visitors, Levi can tell, and won’t even approach Scout and Betty with strangers around.

“The one on the right is Guinevere,” Scout introduces in a lowered voice, pointing out the largest of the females. “The dark one next to her is her daughter, Siobhan. The other half of the alpha pair is Kenyon. The two scaredy-cats right at the back there are Selkie and Dawn.”

Levi keeps his face turned sideways to the wolves but keeps stealing glances through the corner of his eye. They’re magnificent, all big and strong but untamed, with marks of the wilderness on their fur and their collective weariness. One of the more playful ones braves a few steps forward and extends her front legs, staring at them for a while before jumping back and running away over to Guinevere who sits still, her tail stiff and her ears alert while she studies them, self-assured but careful. She’s beautiful and reminds Levi of Edith with her coloring. None of them are a match to Erwin’s size and strength, but there’s something equally majestic about them, something old and unknown and undomesticated that makes Levi’s heart race.

The pack leaves after a few minutes, but even the brief time feels like hours to Levi. He can’t get enough of watching them, of following their every move when he finally turns to look to see them walking away. They pack up their things too as soon as they’ve eaten the food Betty packed for them, nearly outrunning the darkness as it falls on the hills. It has settled around the house by the time they get back, making the windows shine out, warm and inviting. Betty and Scout usher them inside, making quick introductions with whoever happens to be walking by while they make their way to a living room, wood-paneled with a low ceiling and a fireplace that spreads its warmth through the house. Erwin and Levi take seats on the sofa while Betty and Scout disappear only to return a couple minutes later with mugs of hot chocolate flavored with mint. Levi catches the scent of alcohol in the other mugs, relieved when no one points out the difference in his.

Erwin, Betty and Scout fall quickly into an easy conversation, talking about conservation and the problems with running a center, about finance and regulations and the ethics of it. Levi listens but doesn’t speak, his tongue still tied – by what, he’s not sure himself. Maybe it’s Erwin’s thoughtfulness, maybe the simple fact that no one has ever gone through so much fucking trouble for his sake, but for the whole evening he sits there, speechless, looking at Erwin and aching with something he doesn’t have a name for. Someone comes in to refill their hot chocolates and the talk continues until Erwin thinks to glance at his watch, shocked by how late it is.

“We should really start heading–”

“Don’t be silly, you’ll stay here for the night,” Betty cuts him off at once, waving her hand and nodding. “We’ll set up a guest room for you, it’s no trouble at all. You and I can head out first thing tomorrow.”

“And if you want, you and I can go back up the mountain,” Scout says to Levi, piling the empty mugs onto a tray. “The pack ought to be more welcoming with just the two of us.”

Whatever objections Erwin has been about to make don’t make it past Scout’s suggestion and they agree politely, exchanging amused looks. Levi joins Scout to help her with the sheets, following her through the house to the laundry room.

“We only have one empty room at the moment,” she tells him, selecting a couple of pillowcases onto the pile of sheets Levi’s holding, “but we’ve got some extra mattresses if you two’d rather not share a–”

“No it’s good,” Levi blurts out, afraid that if given the chance he’ll chicken out again. “We can share. It’s fine.”

“Alright then,” Scout mutters, flashing Levi a smile and guiding him to the guest room, a cozy little thing with green wallpaper and a double bed under a window.

Once he’s alone, Levi undresses at lightning speed and crawls between the sheets, keeping his eyes on the ceiling when Erwin walks in. The silence that lingers in the room is almost painful, made louder and more obtrusive by the soft rustling of the covers when Erwin lies down, the bedsprings protesting his weight in a loud cry that finally breaks the tension and makes them both chuckle breathlessly. Levi turns on his pillow, meeting Erwin’s gaze, doing his best to ignore the near-blinding hammering of his heart.

“Thanks. It’s really…” he mutters, gritting his teeth for a moment. “I don’t even know what to fucking say.”

“Don’t worry, I got a sense of it,” Erwin tells him, brushing the side of Levi’s face with his thumb.

The touch makes his face heat up, feeling somehow more intimate than anything else they’ve done before. Levi wonders if he should lean in for a kiss, if he should straddle Erwin and touch him. It would be so easy to reach out and make it happen, to satisfy the want he feels in his body – that he feels in Erwin’s. But something in his mind is stronger now, an overpowering need for a closeness of a different kind. In the end he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t need to say anything, since there’s nothing he feels that Erwin doesn’t show him himself. He wraps his arms around Levi and pulls him close, surrounds him with his gratitude and relief, and with that aching feeling Levi felt before – the one he now, finally, understands.


	9. Chapter 9

The mayhem in the kitchen reminds Levi of home even before he steps into the room, with the noise from several people talking simultaneously carrying through the house all the way up to the guest room. It was the noise that finally chased Levi out of bed, though he did wake up for a minute when Erwin got up and the warmth of his body got replaced by air so cool that Levi was forced to pull another blanket on top of himself. There isn’t a sign of the cold in the kitchen, where the heat rising from a dozen bodies and two dozen steaming breakfast dishes is fogging up the windows.

Levi stands at the door and tries to take it all in as fast as he can: the bare arms and legs, high-register voices calling out, long hair drawn up to messy buns and ponytails. It takes a moment for Scout to notice him; when she finally does, she calls out his name and beckons him over, also grabbing the attention of an Asian woman with a shaved head and tattoos running up and down her arms.

“Shay will show you which of the foods are vegan. She’ll know a lot better than I do,” Scout says, digging into her bacon and scrambled eggs.

Levi follows Shay over to the counter, where most of the food is laid out. She talks him through the dishes and hands him a plate, which he fills quickly with an assortment: a bagel with vegan smoked salmon, chickpea scramble with onion and spinach, a slice of toast with homemade boysenberry jam.

“You want tea or coffee?” Shay asks him, filling her own cup from a thermos.

“Tea, if you’ve got it.”

“Hey, Nat,” Shay shouts back to the table, where a woman in her twenties with long, dust-colored hair looks up from her breakfast. “What’s the tea of the day?”

“Oh, you’re going to love it,” Nat starts in a tone half-dreamy and half-excited, fixing Levi’s gaze. “It’s a beautiful first flush Darjeeling from 2014. Really light and flowery, delicate but still flavorful. It’s going to blow your mind, it’s just… super awesome.”

“Uhh…” Levi starts, holding out his mug for Shay and the teapot she’s holding. “Cool. Thanks.”

He takes a seat at the table, overwhelmed at once by the smell of women which overpowers even the smoky scent of his bagel topping. He gets himself a bowl of homemade granola and oat milk when Shay encourages him to; it smells like cinnamon and sugar. He digs into his breakfast, feeling his head pulling between his shoulders. He’s never been the only guy in a group of just women before – or if he has, he can’t remember it. Though no one’s acting hostile towards him – or even paying him much attention – he still feels like he’s invading some private space, something that goes beyond the territory of another pack. The energy in the room is so different it feels foreign, and the whole time Levi’s eating, he’s afraid someone’s going to pick up on how out-of-place he feels.

“So you’re here for the conference, right?” Shay asks him when he’s halfway done with his granola.

“Yeah, I came with someone,” Levi tells her and she nods, laughing.

“Yeah, I kind of figured,” she says, sipping her coffee. “That guy who left this morning, right?”

“Erwin, yeah.”

“So is your pack like, all vegan?” she asks, clicking her tongue when Levi nods. “Man, seriously, I’ve been trying to talk sense into everyone here for two years and we’re only at like, sixty percent. And I’m not even going to talk about how Betty’s never taken any of it as seriously when I’ve been the one saying all the shit about why it’s good – but I think it’s so cool that there’s a pack out there that doesn’t have any dairy or bacon in their fridge.”

“Yeah, it’s not a bad way to be,” Levi agrees, taking a sip of his tea – fucking delicious. “I mean, I’m not sure everyone in the pack is vegan, ‘cause we don’t all live together or anything. But I’ve never seen any non-vegan stuff in the main house or heard anyone complaining about it.”

“I could name a couple of people here who would complain,” Shay says, casting a gloomy look at Scout’s bacon and eggs. “But I’m hoping now that Betty’s started seeing sense we’ll get some real change around here.”

“It’s not always an easy shift to make,” Levi says, biting into his toast. “When I first found out there was no meat on the menu, I thought it was the weirdest fucking thing.”

“So you weren’t always vegan?”

“Fuck no,” Levi replies. “In my first pack we ate meat for literally every meal. I’d never seen a fucking cauliflower before I moved.”

Shay laughs into her mug of coffee. “Yeah, I was the same,” she says. “My first girlfriend was vegan and she’d start feeling sick if I ate any meat around her so I didn’t have much of a choice.”

“Oh, my god, an actual BOY!”

The shriek carries through the kitchen and makes Levi turn his head just in time to catch a tall, blonde woman sliding into a seat beside him. She smells like make-up and chemicals, and Levi’s sure most of the hair on her head isn’t hers. Across the table, Shay grows tense and sullen and turns to her breakfast.

“Hi, how are you? I’m Madeline, it’s so good to meet you! What’s your name?” she says in one breathless assault of words from which Levi barely catches one.

“Uhh… Levi,” he finally manages, extending his hand to shake hers.

“Hi, it’s so nice to meet you,” she says again; her voice is high-pitched and overly sweet – like she’s trying to sell him something. “I guess you came over last night, huh? How long are you staying?”

“We’ll be heading out after breakfast,” Scout calls out from the other end of the table, catching Levi’s gaze. “We’re going back up the mountain.”

“Oh, so you’re here to see Guinevere’s pack?” Madeline asks, nodding when Levi does. “Are you like… interested in conservation work?”

“Err… I guess,” Levi mutters, shuddering a little when Madeline’s expression changes into a wide smile that’s cutesy and more than a little condescending.

“Aww, are you a little shy?” she asks, leaning her chin onto her palm. “Sorry, I guess I’m coming on a little strong. I just haven’t been around a male type person in like, six months so I’m–”

On the other side of the table, Shay snorts loudly into her mug of coffee, but doesn’t say anything. Levi watches as Madeline turns to her, her anger going from zero to hundred by the time she’s facing her.

“Uh-oh.” Levi hears someone whispering somewhere further down the table.

“You got something you want to say?” Madeline snaps at Shay, folding her arms over her chest in a pose Levi thinks she means to be demonstrative of anger, but which comes off more petulant than threatening – and it seems Shay shares his opinion.

“If I wanted to say something, I’d say it,” she tells her, picking up a newspaper from the table and drinking her coffee.

“Oh, you mean like you did yesterday?” Madeline asks, scoffing when Shay shrugs. “So, what? Am I a helpless victim of the patriarchy again because I’m excited there’s a man in the house for once?”

“If the high-heeled shoe fits,” Shay mutters, and suddenly everyone is talking at once, nearly drowning out Madeline’s high-pitched screeching, until Scout stands up and yells at them all to be quiet.

“You two need to work this out,” she tells Shay and Madeline, “in a way that leaves me the hell out of it.”

“It’s impossible to work anything out with someone who turns everything into an argument,” Madeline protest.

“Not my problem if you can’t tell the difference between a discussion and an argument,” Shay counters, and when Madeline threatens to raise her voice again, Scout intervenes.

“Do _not_ make me act like I’m your mother,” she tells them both and they fall quiet. “You know I don’t like it. And the rest of us would like to have our breakfast in peace, so if you two could zip it for the time being, I’m sure I’m not the only one who would appreciate that.”

Levi catches a few people nodding, and Shay shrugs.

“Fine. Whatever,” she says and turns back to her newspaper.

Madeline says nothing, but in a way that feels purposeful to Levi; it’s not that she has nothing to say, it’s that she’s actively not speaking to any of them. A few deep sighs sound around the table, which leads Levi to guess it isn’t the first time Madeline has done this. Later when they’re loading their things onto the snow mobiles, Scout apologizes for the argument, which left the rest of breakfast feeling tense and uncomfortable. Levi waves his hand in a dismissive gesture.

“That was nothing compared to my first pack,” he says, accepting a helmet when Scout passes it to him.

“Usually we can talk things out in a way that’s less contentious, but some issues are different. Sometimes stuff feels too personal, I guess. And then we get this.”

“But it’s bound to happen, right?” Levi says, fiddling with the strap of his helmet. “So many people under one roof, things are bound to come up that people disagree on.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Scout says and sighs. “I guess it’s just the way you do the disagreeing that’s the question. It’s not that these things don’t get sorted, because they do, eventually. It’s just a question of whether someone’s feelings get hurt in the process. That kind of slow build-up of bad blood isn’t good for any pack.”

Levi nods and thinks about Kenny. With the amount of bad blood in his pack, you could fill the fucking great lakes three times over. Now that he thinks back on it, he feels as though there was always something wrong, even when he was a kid; like something that had happened long before Kenny or Ralph or him or any of it had kept casting its shadow over the trailer park from fuck knows how long ago.

“You all good?” Scout asks him when he swings his legs over the snow mobile and pulls the helmet onto his head, starting the engine after he nods. “Just follow me out.”

They ride back up the mountain. Despite the cold air, the warmth radiating off the snow mobile makes Levi sweat under his winter clothes. Their earlier tracks are half hidden underneath a layer of fresh snow but even without them and Scout riding ahead of him, Levi would know where to go. He can smell the pack, a faint, distant, feral scent that catches him by the throat and makes him wonder how he could’ve missed it the previous day. After nearly an hour, they leave the snow mobiles behind and continue on foot, soon panting from the effort of carving a path through the snow.

“Erwin mentioned you’ve got some wolves at a zoo you like to visit?” Scout asks Levi when they’ve been walking for a good ten minutes in silence.

“Yeah,” Levi replies, grabbing a tree when his foot slips on the icy ground. “I used to go there a lot. Not so much now.”

“How come?”

Levi shrugs. “I don’t know,” he admits. “The last time I went, Erwin said it bothered him to see them locked up and stared at, and I guess I just never noticed that before but–”

“But now that you have, you can’t un-notice it?” Scout finishes for him, nodding when he does. “In my experience, the older you get the more things you’ll notice that you can’t un-notice afterwards. I think it’s like that with Betty and this whole vegan business. She’s been made aware of something she never thought to think about before, and there’s no undoing it.” They’re quiet for another moment until Scout asks, “Do you go to a lot of places with Erwin?”

Levi shrugs again, noticing only now he hasn’t been to the zoo by himself since that time he went with Erwin.

“I guess,” he admits, though he’s never really thought about it. “More and more, I think, since…”

His words trail off when he doesn’t know how to continue. Since they went on that disastrous sushi date? Since they became a couple? Since they started kissing and fooling around every chance they got?

“Since you two got together?” Scout fills in and Levi’s grateful that he doesn’t need to think of what to say. “You been together long?”

“Not that long,” Levi says and it feels strange to be talking about him and Erwin like this. Sure he does it with Farlan, but this feels different, more real and grown up. “A couple of months.”

“But you’ve known each other for longer.”

“Yeah,” Levi agrees. “For almost two years now.”

Scout nods along, bending down every once in a while to pick a fallen branch off the trail.

“Is it going okay?” she asks after a while, humming a laugh when Levi shrugs yet again.

“I guess.”

“And everyone at your pack is okay with it?” she asks next; Levi can sense the realization she comes to when the silence stretches on for a little too long. “Or do they not know about it?”

“I’m pretty sure they know now,” he says, cringing internally when he remembers the stiffness of Edith’s posture when she hugged Erwin goodbye on the morning they left. “I didn’t want to say anything before.”

“How come?”

“I don’t know,” Levi says, taking Scout’s hand and letting her help him up a steep rise on the path.

It’s not that he doesn’t have a single explanation. It’s that he has so many he doesn’t know which one to pick, or how to organize all his uneasiness into coherent thoughts and sentences.

“Do you think it’d be a problem on account of you both being–”

“Probably not,” Levi interrupts Scout, grateful not to have to hear her finish her sentence. “I mean, they seem pretty cool about that kind of stuff.”

“But I guess you never know,” Scout fills in after Levi’s been quiet for a while, and he shrugs. “I agree with you there. In my experience a lot of folk are very accepting – until it’s their own kid they have to accept.”

“And I guess it’s not just that,” Levi says, the words pouring out as if they’ve had a taste of freedom and won’t be forced back down. “It’s also just… you know. How we got here, I guess.”

He doesn’t have to explain what he means; Scout doesn’t seem at all surprised to hear him say it.

“Guess it’s not what you’d call an ideal start,” she muses, “and I have to admit, I’m more than a little relieved to hear you two only got together a couple months ago. Not to say I’ve ever thought Erwin was like that,” she rushes to add, maybe sensing Levi’s spiking anger. “It’s just that in my life I’ve known my share of people who I thought weren’t capable of something only to come to see them do exactly that. Betty says they’re my trust issues, but I figure it’s just common sense to remember people aren’t always what they seem.”

Beyond the sudden jolt of anger, Levi can’t help but agree with Scout. It’s not as if he wasn’t wary of Erwin to start with, even though he knew Erwin didn’t think of him like that. He tries to see it from the point of view of an outsider, someone who doesn’t know Erwin that well, who has never seen the two of them together before, and he has to admit he can hardly blame people for thinking what they do, what Kenny did when he first found out. I mean, it’s not as if there are many logical or reasonable explanations for what happened in the first place. He guesses it’s just people trying to make sense of it the only way they know how, wrong as they are.

“I get that,” Levi tells her, thinking of Kenny and the welding torch. “People can surprise you – in good ways and bad. But it’s really not like that, me and Erwin.”

“Yeah, I figured, seeing you together,” Scout tells him, flashing him a quick smile. “I hope things work out with your pack. I mean, who knows? Could be they’ll be over the moon about it, in the end.”

“Yeah,” Levi says, but thinks back to the tight line of Edith’s mouth and shudders. Snowball’s chance in hell. “Did your old pack ever come around to the idea of… you know. You and Betty?”

Scout’s posture slumps a little and she shakes her head. “They were always pretty set in their ways,” she says, smiling sadly. “The last time I saw them was the day me and Betty ran away together. There were some letters and phone calls after that, but that’s about it.”

“You ran away?”

“Didn’t have much of a choice,” Scout tells him, a look of determination on her face, even all these years later. “Both our packs, they had views about what was acceptable for women to do, and what we got up to together sure wasn’t it. And just me being the way I am didn’t sit right with them either.”

“But you made it work though?” Levi asks. “Being without a pack?”

“Well, we had each other, which was a big help,” Scout says. “But it wasn’t easy to start with. We were dirt poor, had to keep us a secret so that Betty could find any work at all. Me being the way I am, I had real trouble finding anything, since places back in those days didn’t like having gals who look like me around. We asked around at some other packs if they’d like us to join, but in the end there was always something not right about them, and we didn’t want to compromise on that, so we had no other option than to save up, buy our own place and get our own pack going.”

“Do you think…” Levi starts, pausing to consider his words. “I mean, if you hadn’t had Betty, if it had just been you. Would you have been able to make it work?”

Scout shakes her head. “Maybe,” she says, “but I doubt it. In those first years she was supporting the both of us more often than not. I tried to tell her I could make more of an effort, pretty myself up a little, but she wouldn’t have any of it. I think if it had been just me, I’d probably have had to do that, and I would’ve been worse off for it. And that’s just the money side of things. That’s not even taking into account all the rest of it.”

“What’s the rest of it?”

Scout hesitates for a moment. “You know, folks around these parts have really made an effort to get everyone to work together and get along,” she says, “but it’s not like that everywhere. There was a time when Betty and I moved into a bigger city, trying to find work and folks who’d be more open-minded. But as soon as we got there, the pack that ran in that part of town paid us a visit. Told us if we wanted to live and work there, we’d need to pay them for a permit, and a monthly fee on top of that – and the permit alone was more than we could afford. We put our foot down against that for a while, but the first Molotov cocktail we got through the living room window was our cue to get the hell out of there.”

“Fuck,” Levi swears. “I never realized it was that bad.”

“Oh yeah,” Scout says. “City packs have a whole different way of doing things. I’ve heard some of them only accept new members on a buy-in basis, and those sums can run in the millions. And if you can’t pay up, you’re shit outta luck.”

Levi keeps thinking of Scout’s story even after they’ve arrived at the campsite and started a fire, remembering both the attempted escape from the trailer park he made with his mom, and his own reckless imitation of it. After Erwin had dragged him back home, he knew he was lucky to be back, but he never thought about the fate he was lucky to escape – until now. As he sits by the fire, stretching his hands out towards the flames, he wonders if his mother ran into trouble like that in the city, if that’s why she couldn’t make it work. Maybe if she had tried to run away to someplace else – any place else – she wouldn’t have died like she did.

“There’s Guinevere,” Scout says when the first low howl pierces the air. “I wonder if they’ll venture a bit closer this time. Some of the younger ones are usually playful enough to forget that they’re scared of strangers.”

It doesn’t take the pack long to arrive, but Levi’s heart keeps hammering faster after each passing second, so  that when he finally catches the first glimpse of gray fur through the trees, he’s near dizzy from it. He does his best not to show his excitement since he knows the wolves can sense it even with the relaxed, unthreatening posture he’s forcing himself into. Scout turns her back to the fire and greets the first of the pack as she runs over in a flurry of dark, fluffy fur. Levi can hear her frantic snuffling over Scout’s laughing when she reaches up to smell and lick her face, her tail wagging lazily from side to side. Over in the woods, the rest of the pack is advancing slowly, walking toward the two of them in a wide arch rather than rushing straight over. He feels stupid for it, but Levi can’t help his surprise at how big they are, their paws nearly the size of his hands. It’s not something he’s noticed when he’s been in his fur, perhaps because it feels so natural that he’s never thought to pay attention to it.

“Do you ever go running with them?” Levi asks Scout, reaching out his hand to let Siobhan sniff it tentatively; she dances a little back and forth whenever he moves even an inch.

“We’ve done that a couple of times,” Scout tells him, petting the thick fur on Guinevere’s neck, “but it still spooks them a little. I think they can sense that we’re not like other people, but they’re clearly not sure what to think of the shift when they see it.”

Levi laughs when Siobhan licks the palm of his hand. The noise startles her and she draws back, running over to Scout and Guinevere for a few seconds of safety during which she gathers her courage. When she walks back over to Levi, she smells his face eagerly, pushing her cold nose under the collar of Levi’s winter coat to catch the scent of his scar. His shoulders pull up to his ears and he laughs again.

“She likes you,” Scout says, fighting to keep her face out of the reach of Guinevere’s tongue.

_I think she likes Erwin_ , Levi almost says, nearly falling off his log when Siobhan leans her paws onto his chest to get easier access to the back of his neck.

They stay at the campsite for a couple of hours, playing with the pack and talking. By the time the wolves start heading back to the forest, even Selkie and Dawn – the pack’s newest and least courageous members, according to Scout – have gotten over their initial hesitation and made their wary but curious introductions by sniffing Levi’s face and letting him pet their large heads. More than pay attention to him, they crowd around Scout, eventually pushing her over in their excitement to let her know she’s part of the family. From such a close distance they’re even more marvelous to behold than they were the previous night, and when they finally retreat back into the woods in a skulking canter, Levi watches them for as long as he can make out their shapes under the trees. He feels like something extraordinary has just taken place, something almost religious and mythical that he can’t find the words for. Scout seems to sense the reason for his silence and doesn’t bother with much conversation when they too head back down the mountain after a quick lunch of icy smoothies and sandwiches.

They arrive back at the house a few hours past noon and join the rest of the pack in the kitchen where they’re making dinner. In the middle of the overwhelming scent of women, Levi’s painfully aware of his own sweaty musk and the smell of gasoline that clings to his clothes from the ride up and down. Watching them all work together, chatting and laughing, he feels more out of place than he did with the wolves. Despite feeling supremely self-conscious, he asks how he can help and is assigned the job of peeling potatoes with Natalie, the fellow tea enthusiast from breakfast. They talk a little about their favorite blends, though Levi starts to feel stupid pretty quickly, comparing his own lack of knowledge to Natalie, who categorizes her picks based on the Chinese or Indian province of origin and the stage during which the leaves are harvested.

“This is my all-time favorite place to buy my tea,” she tells him, conjuring up a notepad and a pencil and scribbling down the name of a website, which she hands over to him. “They have a really wide selection - and free deliveries for orders that are fifty bucks or over.”

“Thanks,” Levi says, placing the piece of paper in his pocket. “I’ll make sure I check it out.”

Dinner is borderline rowdy but Levi doesn’t mind. He tops his bowl of rice with green beans, tofu, mushrooms, spinach and hummus and eats it with good appetite, chatting with Sienna, a girl in her early twenties, who has just finished applying to college.

“I’ve been here for three years and only now I felt like I was in the right state of mind to do it,” she says. “It’s one of those decisions that you don’t want to fuck up if you can help it. Right?”

“Yeah,” Levi agrees, thinking about his own applications, which sit unfilled in the drawer of his desk. “I mean, if you can afford to take a year or two to figure it out, why the hell wouldn’t you?”

“Exactly,” Sienna states, her mouth full of chicken curry. “And especially as a woman, there are so many limitations that have been put on me or that I’ve put on myself and I’ve had to unlearn all of them before I could make any kind of reasonable decision. But it’s really amazing to find a place where you can actually do that, right?”

Levi nods, but doesn’t know what to say.

He drinks one last cup of tea with Nat after dinner – a spicy chai with chili and sea buckthorn – while he waits for Scout to get ready for the cocktail party. Levi expects it to take her while, and he’s barely halfway done with his cup of tea when Scout reappears in the kitchen only fifteen minutes after she left, wearing a black pantsuit with a clean white shirt underneath. He chugs his tea down in one scorching gulp and says a quick thanks and goodbye to Nat and a few of the others who gather in the hallway to see them out.

“Betty’s not going to be happy if we get there late,” Scout mutters, glancing nervously at her watch while they’re buckling up.

The drive feels longer than Levi remembered, and halfway back to the hotel he gets a call from Erwin, asking him if they’re almost there yet.

“We’ll be another twenty minutes,” he says after asking Scout. “Are we going to be late?”

“No, you should be fine,” Erwin lets him know; Levi can hear someone calling out his name in the background. “I’ll meet you in the lobby when you get here.”

Once they’ve finally arrived, Levi exchanges barely a hello with Erwin before rushing upstairs to get ready. He hops in the shower before ruffling the water out of his hair and getting dressed in his suit, his every move so full of exaggerated care that it takes him a full five minutes. Despite having practised it at home a couple dozen times, Levi has a tutorial on in the background while he ties his cravat – he redoes it once before he’s happy with how it looks. Once his hair has dried, he grabs a tin of wax he borrowed from Farlan and fixes his usual droopy mop in the way Farlan showed him he should do. When he looks at himself in the mirror as he brushes his teeth, he can barely believe he’s looking at himself. The suit fits him like a glove, and it seems to highlight some positive aspects about his body that he never knew existed. Wearing it, he looks taller, and even the slimness that he usually finds so offensive seems to suit him, like it’s a look he’s cultivated and worked towards and not just how his body has decided – stubbornly – to be. He rinses out his mouth and fiddles with the buttons of his jacket for a couple more seconds before heading out the door.

The party is held in a private cabinet off the main dining hall, a space that in the brochure was described as “intimate” but – with as many of them as there are – the words “small” and “crowded” seem better descriptors. They’re the last to arrive, from the look of things, and Levi feels a sting of guilt for taking so long to fiddle around with his hair. There’s a bar at one end of the room toward which they gravitate almost at once, ordering a variety of drinks: a beer for Scout, a mojito for Betty and a whisky sour (“no egg white”) for Erwin. Levi gets himself a pop just to have a glass in his hand. They stand around in a way that feels awkward to Levi, talking over the soft music pouring out of a set of speakers somewhere, until a louder noise cuts through.

“There you two are!” Sharon exclaims, finding her way to them through the room with her husband in tow – a forty-something man with a beard and arms so thick he looks like he could wrestle a bear and win. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d decided to make it an early night, but I’m so glad you’re here – and looking so handsome!”

The latter comment is clearly meant more for Levi, judging by the slightly condescending tone. He lifts his glass a little before taking a sip, but lets Erwin take care of saying thank you.

“You’re looking very lovely yourself,” he says, smiling politely. “Both of you.”

“Oh,” Sharon says, glancing at her husband and giggling, confused. “Well. Uhh… thank you. That’s very–”

Her husband lets out a booming laugh and slaps Erwin on the shoulder. “Good one,” he says, turning to Levi and holding out his hand. “We’ve not been properly introduced. Kyle.”

“Levi.”

“Good to meet you,” Kyle says, catching the bartender’s eye and pointing at his beer. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone from your pack before. You guys pretty much just keep to yourselves, huh?”

“Not my pack anymore,” Levi says, not surprised when Kyle starts backpedaling.

“Oh, yeah, I guess it isn’t,” he says, accepting another beer from the bartender with a quick thanks. “Sorry, didn’t mean any offence or-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Levi tells him, glad when Sharon swoops in to change the subject and starts a lively conversation about the trip to Mexico their pack has planned to take in a few months.

“You alright?” Erwin asks him in a low voice after a while, joining Levi at the bar to top up his whisky sour.

“Yeah,” he replies, leaning on the bar and watching Linda herding people around to make room for a dance floor. “You?”

“Yeah,” Erwin says, laughing a little when he leans in to whisper, “It’s not my first time.”

Levi laughs too, more to distract himself from the heat rising to his cheeks than any other reason. “So is this pretty much what it’s about?”

Erwin looks around the room for a few seconds. “Yeah, this is pretty much it,” he says, thanking the guy at the bar when he gets his drink. “Sorry. I guess it’s not very interesting.”

Levi shrugs. “Maybe if you’d flirt with Kyle a little more,” he suggests, grinning when Erwin fixes him with a flat stare.

“Funny,” he mutters, hurrying to point at his drink and mouth apologies to Sharon who’s waving furiously for him to join the small group of people on the dance floor.

“Just so you know, I’m not doing that.”

“Dancing?” Erwin confirms, nodding when Levi does. “Don’t worry. It’s not mandatory.”

“Are you going to?” Levi asks next, guessing the answer from Erwin’s smile.

“Probably,” he admits, sipping his drink. “I usually end up there sooner or later.”

‘Sooner’ turns out to be right. As soon as he has finished his second whisky sour, Erwin lets Linda drag him to the dance floor. Levi finds a seat at the edge of the room and watches him, admiring the gracefulness with which he moves and carries himself. His suit is cut just as impeccably as Levi’s own is; it accentuates everything that’s most beautiful about his body to Levi: his broad shoulders, his long legs, his undeniable physical strength that the clothes blend together with a kind of mature sophistication that makes Levi hot under his collar. Every once in a while Betty or Scout comes over to check on him, until they too find an open space on the dance floor, pulling each other close for a slow dance that Erwin shares with Linda. Levi gets himself another drink, wishing he could splash a little vodka in it when the bartender is distracted. Being the only one not drinking makes him feel like a child, and even though he can sense Erwin’s gaze coming back to him again and again, he wonders if he wouldn’t be sexier to him holding a whisky sour.

“Is this seat taken?”

Levi looks up and shakes his head at Uri Reiss who sits down on the chair next to his. He tries not to stare when his companion brings him a glass of something steaming hot that smells like rum. She disappears into the crowd as quickly as she appeared when Uri waves her off, telling her to go and have some fun and not spend the whole night looking after him.

“We haven’t met,” he says, turning to Levi so suddenly he flinches. They make their introductions and Uri says, “You’re Kenny’s nephew” – a statement as surprising as it is precise.

“You know Kenny?” Levi asks, frowning when Uri Reiss nods.

“I used to,” he replies, and Levi can sense his mood changing for an instant to something wistful, if not quite sad. “I haven’t seen him in years. Tell me, how is he these days?”

Levi shrugs, almost giving the old man a standard answer of “fine” – but something about his strange tone makes Levi change his mind.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I haven’t seen him in a while.”

“So you don’t visit,” Uri Reiss says, like Levi has just confirmed something he already thought. “I hope there’s no bad blood between the two of you.”

Levi stays quiet, not knowing what to say. There’s something absurd about the situation, something dream-like. It reminds him of the night Marie gave birth, of talking with the midwife – like a ghost from his past had come to tell him something he never knew he was supposed to know.

“I see,” Uri Reiss says and sighs like Levi has confirmed to him some great fear he’s been carrying around for months. “Well, I suppose he was always quick to take offence.”

“You can say that again,” Levi mutters, making Uri chuckle quietly.

“My niece has mentioned you,” he tells Levi suddenly. “Frieda. I hear you go to her school.”

_Her_ school. Jesus fucking Christ.

“Uhh… yeah,” he tells the man. “Just a couple months left.”

“I hope you’ve enjoyed your time there.”

“Sure,” Levi blurts out before he can think more on it. “Good teachers, and it’s… really clean.”

Lucky for him, Erwin joins them before Uri Reiss can say anything else random to him – and more importantly, before he has a chance to say anything fucking stupid back at him. He stays quiet while the two of them talk about pack business, and about some proposal Uri has made in one of their meetings. By the time their conversation is over, the old man has emptied his glass and is nearly snoozing in his chair. His companion swoops in out of nowhere, it seems to Levi, as soon as Uri has managed to get onto his feet.

“I had better go upstairs and rest,” he tells them, patting Levi on the shoulder with his wrinkly and weathered hand. “Give my best to your uncle, if you see him.”

“Sure,” Levi promises, frowning as he stares at the man’s receding back until he disappears into the crowd. “Is he alright?” he asks Erwin, who smiles and leans closer.

“People don’t really talk about it,” he starts, “but when he was a young man, he contracted rabies and nearly died. He’s one of the only werewolves who’ve survived it.”

“And _he’s_ the alpha?” Levi asks, shaking his head. “I don’t get it.”

Erwin laughs. “It’s not just about physical strength, you know.”

“You’re one to talk,” Levi points out, blushing. “Bet you could take on any guy here.”

“What if the only guy here I want to take on is you?”

Levi feels his stomach clenching when he glances at Erwin, his low, sonorous voice still buzzing in his ear. His thoughts rush upstairs to his hotel room, picturing him and Erwin kissing, undressing each other, every faltering step taking them closer to his unmade bed. He forces himself back into the moment, wants to say something back to Erwin, something flirtatious and encouraging, but his tongue seems stuck on the roof of his mouth. In the end Erwin says he’s going to get another drink. Levi watches him as he gets bogged down at the bar by one of the women from the hiking trip – Carol or Jennifer or something, Levi isn’t sure.

The party grinds on. After another half an hour of sitting in one spot by himself, Levi gets up and tries to talk a little with people, but retreats back to the safety by the wall once the third person has asked him about his plans for college. Scout checks in on him again, asking if he’s bored and Levi says yes. It’s a reasonable explanation, and much easier to explain than telling her the best time he’s had all night has been when he’s stood by himself, watching Erwin. Every once in a while Levi glances at his watch, draining panic into his own chest as the hours disappear – only a handful left now before they’ll be back home. He thinks about the previous night, about Erwin’s arms around him when he fell asleep. He wants to wake up like that again, wants to fall asleep like that, feeling Erwin pressed against his back. And he wants to respond to Erwin’s flirting, to let him know he wants it, that one small push from Erwin would have him getting down on any bed – hell, any horizontal surface would do at this point. But the minutes and hours tick by and Levi does nothing but watches, until Erwin comes to him, smelling like a heady mix of sweat and whisky sours.

“You’re really bored, aren’t you?” he asks Levi who wants to shake his head, but knows he can’t admit to being a creep who can spend hours just looking at someone and call that ‘enjoying himself.’ His shrug goes unnoticed by Erwin who lets out a low whistle, looking at his watch. “I didn’t realize it was so late already. You could’ve come and told me and we could’ve left if–”

“Haven’t _you_  had a good time?” Levi interrupts to ask him.

Erwin hesitates for a moment. “I’m not saying I haven’t,” he admits, smiling, “but I didn’t want you to just suffer through so much of this.”

“I haven’t been suffering,” Levi tells him, snorting into his glass. “Don’t be such a drama queen.”

Erwin laughs. “Fine,” he concedes, glancing at his watch again. “It is getting late though, and we need to get an early start driving back.”

For a few seconds Levi lets his panic overwhelm him, almost to the point of blurting out something stupid. ‘No, let’s stay a little longer. I’m having a lot of fun. You should go and dance some more.’ Fucking piece of shit nerves. How chicken shit can he get?

“We should probably go then,” he finally manages to blurt out. “You know, with the driving and everything.”

“You’re sure?” Erwin asks him, nodding when he does. “Sure. Let’s go.”

They start making their way through the room, stopping every couple of yards when someone grabs a hold of Erwin and begs him to stay a little longer, just one more dance, it’s not even midnight yet. Levi waits by while he excuses himself just as politely every time until they’re waving their goodbyes to Scout and Betty from the door. Outside, the hotel is quiet and the air feels fresh and cool, giving Levi the distinct feeling of stepping outside on a cold, still night. They get in the elevator and Levi counts the seconds, his whole body bristling with something nameless and electric. When they step into the hallway, he turns to Erwin, the words already forming in his mouth – and stays quiet when Erwin’s phone begins to ring.

“Hold on a second,” he says, fishing it out of his pocket and answering.

It’s Edith; Levi can hear her voice – decidedly casual – asking Erwin when he thinks they’ll be back tomorrow and if they’ve had a good time. There’s something impatient about Erwin’s answers, something distracted, and Levi feels it too. When Erwin stops in front of the door to his room, going through his pockets for the key card, he knows he’ll never get a better opportunity. He reaches out his hand and grabs the sleeve of Erwin’s jacket, pulling him further down the hallway and jamming his own key card into the lock in his door. Erwin’s speech falters when Levi nudges him into the room and closes the door behind them, barely managing to breathe until he escapes the heaviness of Erwin’s sudden excitement into the bathroom. From behind the closed door, he can hear Erwin desperately trying to end the phone call with Edith until he turns on the tap and lets it drown out the words.

He keeps the water running while he takes a piss and brushes his teeth, staring at himself in the mirror and pressing a hand on his chest. He feels breathless and dizzy but even as he’s standing there, the nervousness he felt before starts feeling softer and more distant, like it has finally run its course. He wonders if he’s ready, then wonders what being ready even means and if it’s a real thing people feel. Suddenly it feels stupid to keep waiting, and he can’t say what it is he’s been waiting for. Some magical switch to flick in his brain that would make him feel self-assured and older than his years, like he’s on equal footing with Erwin in everything, like he no longer has anything he despairs at when he looks at his body in the mirror?

It should be enough as it is, he decides, rinsing out his mouth. And if it’s not, there’s nothing he can do about that.

He walks out of the bathroom and turns off the lights, following the warm glow of a bedside lamp around the corner. Erwin is sitting on the bed, fingers laced together loosely, lids lowered over his eyes until he hears Levi and looks up; he expects him to smile, but Erwin stays serious, his gaze steady and grounding. Levi crosses the room with a few steps, no longer wondering if he should say something, if he should do something specific, if he should explain to Erwin why he took him to his room or ask him if he wants to leave.

He stops when he’s standing in front of Erwin, in the space between his spread legs, and even this is making him grow hard. Levi pushes his hands into Erwin’s hair and pulls his gaze up, off the swelling on his pants. He can feel the heat on his face, the shallowness of his own breath when they kiss. Erwin’s desire is a taste on his lips, heady and sweet, beyond the remains of the whisky sours. He stands up and Levi tilts up his head, his cock twitching at the sudden arousal Erwin’s physical dimensions spark in him. He feels Erwin’s fingers on his throat, teasing off the cravat, and his own hands fly to the buttons of his jacket which falls onto the floor when he shrugs out of it. Hazily, he remembers dreaming about this, of Erwin taking the suit off him, and he kisses Erwin harder, as if thanking him for making it a reality.

He kicks off his shoes, grabbing the lapels of Erwin jacket when he does the same and pushing the fabric off his shoulders, stepping on it a second later when Erwin pulls him closer and into another kiss. He feels Erwin’s hands stroking his back, nearing the scar on his neck before stopping and closing into fists around his shirt. Levi mimics the movement, pulling the hem of Erwin’s out of his trousers, breaking the kiss to look at the buttons he’s frantically trying to tease open. He doesn’t realize how impatient Erwin is until he join him at the task, unbuttoning the top buttons while Levi works on the bottom ones. He shrugs out of the shirt himself, giving Levi a second to admire the light dusting of hair on his chest before he runs his hand onto Levi’s neck. The touch makes him shudder and groan, his dick now so hard it’s almost uncomfortable.

He shoves Erwin onto the bed, too impatient now to unbutton the full length of his shirt and instead yanking it over his head as soon as he can fit his head through the collar. He climbs on top of Erwin, straddling him and catching his mouth in a kiss, licking the tip of Erwin’s tongue when he feels it between his lips. When Erwin pushes up with his hips, Levi can feel his erection; it sends another jolt of arousal down to his own groin, sharp and searing, and Levi knows he’s never felt so wanted in his entire life, like someone can’t wait to kiss him and touch him and see him naked. It makes him feel dizzy, like he’s suddenly crashed back into his own body after seeing nothing but Erwin, having focused on nothing but him.

“Are you–” Erwin starts to ask, but Levi shuts him up with another kiss. He doesn’t want to hear, not a single thoughtful question, not another final confirmation of what they both already know.

Levi aches from arousal when Erwin flips him onto his back, his hands instantly finding the buckle of Levi’s belt and teasing it open. His hips move as if out of their own volition, he’s so desperate to be touched. When Erwin’s fingers brush against his cock as they tease open his zipper, Levi wriggles out from underneath him, enough to kick off his trousers and socks and underwear. When Erwin touches him, he flinches and draws a sharp breath through his teeth before swearing and closing his eyes. They fly open a few seconds later when he senses Erwin moving on the bed, and he watches him lowering his head to give a few impatient kisses on his abdomen before he reaches his cock. One of his hands comes up to find Levi’s and he guides it onto his hair, which Levi touches clumsily until he feels the sharp pleasure of Erwin sucking him into his mouth and his grip tightens.

His eyes close as he arches his back, seeking the wet heat of Erwin’s tongue that rubs against him and rolls around him, bringing back his self-consciousness when he starts to fear he won’t last a full minute before coming – and then the thought of coming into Erwin’s mouth nearly makes it happen. He opens his eyes and looks down at Erwin, spends a few seconds fighting the duality of feeling both aroused at watching him, and uncomfortable seeing his own naked body and knowing Erwin can see it too.

The thought disappears when Erwin looks up at him, pulling up and licking the length of his cock, his hand tight around the base of it, so teasing and soft it makes Levi squirm. He swears in a whisper that turns into a groan when Erwin sucks him back into his mouth, his fist curling around him to pump at his length while the tip of his cock rubs against his tongue and lips. Beyond the ringing in his ears, Levi’s distantly aware of his own panting breathing and the moans of pleasure tearing out of his throat. They keep growing more frantic, just like his fingers in Erwin’s hair, clutch and release, clutch and release, so desperate for more, so good, so close, and Erwin seems to notice it too. His pace quickens, his grip tightens, something becomes more centered right where Levi wants it, where he needs it, right there below the tip of his cock. And everything is pleasure and heat, a swelling tide of pressure waiting for release, so good that Levi wishes he would never come, that it would never end, but which he yearns for all the while, his fingers stretching out and curling up, tugging on Erwin’s hair, forming fists around it when he comes, arching off the mattress with a low groan of a swear, his limbs trembling and taut and numb. For a few seconds the world is dark with stars exploding underneath the closed lids of his eyes until he comes down, his body weightless on the bed, his hands coming up to cover his face.

“Fuck,” he whispers, breathing out the word along with his panting. “Fuck. Jesus.”

Somewhere below Erwin chuckles and Levi grabs his arm, pulling him up and into a kiss that feels like it’ll suffocate him. Erwin is breathless too, gasping when Levi breaks away and pushes him onto his back, hoping his forcefulness will mask the nerves he suddenly feels again. He kisses Erwin’s neck and chest, shivering when Erwin puts his hand on the back of his head and touches the scar – the feeling is different now, more contentment than arousal, and so strong he feels a guttural groan building up in his throat. He lets Erwin keep touching him for as long as he can when he moves down, his hands shaking when he unbuckles Erwin’s belt and pulls off his trousers and underwear. For a while he just sits there, straddling Erwin’s thighs, watching his cock twitching even before he’s touched it and he knows if he hadn’t just come, the sight alone would be enough to make him hard again – there’s something so arousing about Erwin being uncut, though Levi’s noticed more often than once that he’s forgotten to add in the detail when he’s been thinking about him while jerking off.

Slowly, like fearing he’s already doing something wrong, Levi reaches out and wraps his hand around the cock, looking up at Erwin’s face when he hears him let out a muffled groan. He gives it a couple of tentative strokes while Erwin pulls a second pillow under his head, leaning onto it but never taking his eyes off Levi even when he gets on his knees, settling between Erwin’s legs. His smell is thick and heavy, like a hot day that throbs with humidity as it waits for thunder. Levi bends down and presses his lips onto the tip of Erwin’s dick, feeling it twitch against them. He gathers his courage and tastes Erwin on his tongue, salt and sour mixed with sweat and musk.

He doesn’t know if he’s doing it right – he was hoping some kind of instinct would’ve kicked in and made him perfect at it – but he tries to take his cues from Erwin, from the sounds he makes, from the way the touch of his hand on his neck changes, tightening and releasing. Levi tries to think back to what Erwin just did to him, how he moved his hand, where he could feel his tongue, but again and again becomes aware that he’s forgetting to do something, that his hand has stopped moving along Erwin’s length, or his tongue is sitting uselessly in his mouth, or there’s no actual sucking going on in his first attempt at sucking cock. A few times he gags, but worse than that is hearing Erwin apologize for it.

And still Levi knows, he feels with his entire being that he _loves_ this, loves the strain on his jaw, the sour taste in his mouth, the moments when he feels like he can barely breathe, and that the only thing making him uncomfortable is feeling like he’s not very good at it. But listening to Erwin, his quickened breathing and half-suppressed groans, sensing the strain in his quivering thighs, he knows he must be doing something right. He knows to expect the moment, can read it from the pressure of Erwin’s hand on his neck and from the softly spoken swears that pour out of his mouth more and more frequently, and still there’s something surprising about it, about the force with which it happens and how much of it there is.

He wasn’t expecting the taste, either; he’d never thought he wouldn’t like it, or that he’d find it so unpleasant, but the salty sourness that sits on his tongue now is so intense he can barely think. Erwin picks up on his discomfort quickly and hands him a box of tissues. Levi empties his mouth on one while Erwin gets out of bed and takes a few steps to the minibar, handing Levi a can of Coke.

“Sorry,” Levi says after a few hasty gulps. “I didn’t mean to–”

“Don’t worry about it,” Erwin tells him, rubbing the back of his neck and smiling in a way that calms him down instantly. “Not everyone likes it. It’s okay.”

Levi nods and breathes, taking a few more gulps out of the can before handing it to Erwin. For a while neither one of them seems to know what to do, until Erwin grabs of hold of his shoulder and pulls him down onto the bed, under the covers. For a moment Levi wonders if he should say something, but he doesn’t know what. Thank you? Was that okay? Was _I_ okay? But he’s not sure he wants to know.

“You alright?” Erwin asks him, smiling when he nods. “Good.”

“Are you alright?” Levi asks and they both laugh, still a little breathless. “Yeah, okay.”

He thought it would be impossible for him to fall asleep, but Erwin has barely turned off the lights when he finds himself sinking into it, so content and tired he’s sure he’s never gotten a better night’s sleep.

They set out back home immediately after breakfast the following morning; Scout and Betty have driven over to see them off and give them both tight hugs goodbye, and lots of well-wishes to take back to the pack. On the drive Levi can’t stop thinking about the morning, how he woke up to the sound of the shower running, and just the knowledge Erwin was there, that they were sharing the same space, going through their morning routines together, was enough to make the scar on his neck tingle. Even now the car is full of their shared contentedness. It makes the air sweet and vibrant and keeps Levi smiling quietly until his cheeks ache.

They make only one stop, to have lunch at the vegan diner and to switch drivers; Levi grateful he has something pulling his focus before they get back to the house, where he fears everyone will be able to sense that something’s different about them. His fear turns out to be unfounded. By the time he’s parked the hybrid by the porch, Edith and Ansel and Isabel are already out the door, ready to welcome them back and usher them in for dinner. To buy himself a moment, Levi runs his bag upstairs to his room where he leans against the door and breathes, looking around at the space that is – sadly, stupidly – all his.


	10. Chapter 10

Outside the tall arched windows of the school library snow is coming down hard, swirling with the blustery wind that makes the glass rattle and shake. It’s the first blizzard of the year, and Levi knows when they’ll finally drive home, they’ll come across the pickup on the road up to the house, and several people clearing the paths before they get indoors. The thought of shovel-duty is groan worthy - but still less exhausting than the SAT prep book he’s got open on the table in front of him. The numbers and letters in the equations are jumping out at him, like mocking his inability to make any kind of sense of them. He reaches into his backpack and marks up yet another page with a neon green post-it so he’ll remember to ask Ansel to help him with it later. The sight of the two dozen notes sticking out of the book stirs a panicked kind of desperation within him until a loud whisper from a nearby table pulls his focus.

“Hey, Pinkman,” Lovof hisses - his new favorite nickname for Levi; he had to look it up to get the insult, and bristled when he found out it was the name of a character on a show about a chemistry teacher who starts cooking meth to pay for hospital bills or some shit. “I’m having a party this weekend, think your uncle could fix us up with something?”

Levi raises his middle finger without looking up from his book and grits his teeth when he hears Lovof and his friends sniggering, muttering words like “loser” and “faggot” under their breaths. It’s been like this ever since he came back to school after the holidays - an endless collection of supposedly funny and clever comments about the trailer park and Kenny cooking up meth, with a couple remarks about inbreeding thrown in here and there for good measure. They do it during class most often, whenever the teacher’s back is turned, knowing he can only sit there, stewing in his own rage and the specific and vivid fantasies of changing to his fur and ripping all of their throats out.

“You saying you don’t need the money?” Lovof goes on, barely able to hold back his laughter. “I mean, it’s kind of fucking obvious that you-”

“Hey dickface, how about you shut up and go fuck yourself?” Levi snaps, regretting his outburst instantly when he sees Headmistress Reiss poking her head out of the philosophy aisle and staring straight at him. “Shit.”

“What was that, Mr. Ackerman?” she asks, her heels clicking against the hardwood floor when she makes her way over to his table.

“Nothing, ma’am,” Levi mutters, pulling his head between his shoulders and gritting his teeth not to start yelling at her too - but even in his anger, he knows better than to try and blame it on Lovof. He knows well enough whose side the headmistress would take.

“That’s right,” she tells him sternly, he mouth a tight, plum-colored line. “We don’t tolerate the use of language like that in this school, Mr. Ackerman, is that understood?”

“Yes.”

“You make sure that it is,” she says, pointing a finger at him. “This is your one and only warning. I’m advising you not to test it.”

He stays quiet and watches as she turns to Lovof and his friends and gives them a long, searching look before walking away, escorted out of the library by Lovof’s badly suppressed laughter that chases Levi out a few minutes later when the anger he feels at the injustice of it all threatens to boil over and onto Lovof’s face through his fist. He finds a spot on a wide window sill near the auditorium where he tries to focus on trigonometry but shakes out of his thoughts every few minutes to find himself dully watching the swirling of snow outside instead. He finally gives up pretending to study ten minutes before Isabel finishes her soccer practice and watches restoration videos on Youtube until she finds him, red cheeked and way too chipper for a Tuesday afternoon.

“Coach Collins said I was like, the best team player today,” she explains breathlessly to Edith when they drive out of the parking lot. “She was all ‘Everybody watch what Isabel’s doing’ and I could tell that Shosh was so jealous but honestly, if she wanted to get a compliment she should’ve just played better, so I don’t even feel sorry for her.”

“I’m glad you had such a good day at school,” Edith beams at her before casting a careful look at Levi through the rearview mirror. “What about you? Everything okay?”

Levi shrugs, thinking back to the incident in the library before saying, “No less than usual.”

“No less than usual,” Edith repeats quietly, sounding like she’s disappointed in his answer. “Did you get a lot of studying done after classes? Did you still want to do reading prep after dinner?”

“I was gonna do algebra today,” he replies, though he knows he’s been doing math with Ansel during every prep session he’s had so far, and that he’s lagging badly behind in everything else.

“Well if that’s what you want,” Edith tells him and though there’s no judgment in her voice, Levi feels a shudder running down his spine.

A stifling silence fills the car, identical to the stifling silence that’s been lingering in the house for the past couple of weeks. It’s been one of the strangest revelations in Levi’s life so far, to recognize how the weight of the things that are not being said can feel like no one’s saying anything at all. It felt familiar to him from the start, but it took him a few days to register he knew it from the trailer park, where anything Kenny didn’t want to talk about was never talked about. He’s not sure which one of them is playing Kenny in this scenario, or whether they’re all equally uncomfortable bringing up the subject, but he suspects he and Edith are the main contenders for the title. Still, he prefers the silence to an actual conversation about it. No doubt Ansel and Edith would sit him down for some lecture on safe sex and consent or some shit, best case scenario. More likely they would just patiently explain to him that they don’t want their son dating trailer park trash like him and ask him to pack up his things and leave.

Even the thought makes his fucking skin crawl.

Back at the house, Edith joins Ansel in sweeping snow off the porch and Levi jumps at the opportunity, dropping his backpack in the mudroom and sneaking past the bustling kitchen to Erwin’s office. He doesn’t bother to knock; Erwin will know it’s him anyway. Inside the office the air is fragrant and warm with the door to the bedroom standing open and letting through the crackling of a fire in the little heater in the corner. Levi shrugs out of his coat and kicks off his shoes before taking a seat across the desk from Erwin, who only looks up from his laptop when he lets out a weary exhale.

“You okay?” he asks at once, fingers still tapping on the keyboard that’s also pulling his gaze.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Levi says, rubbing his face and yawning. “Long day.”

“Something happen?” Erwin’s frown disappears when Levi shakes his head. “Give me just a sec, I need to finish this email.”

Levi pulls his phone out of his pocket and collects his daily prize from one of his games, playing until Erwin sighs and shuts off the laptop before stretching his back and yawning.

“Is it still snowing outside?” he asks, groaning when Levi nods. “Guess I should get back to shovelling.”

“Ansel and Edith are doing that,” Levi hurries to say, “and they had the good shovels so you know... might as well wait till they’re done, right?”

Erwin smiles. “Actually Nan and Mike brought theirs over this morning so-”

“Well yeah, but...” Levi starts, laughing when Erwin does. “I mean, too many cooks, you know. And might as well wait till after dinner.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Erwin concedes, smirking. “Need to be careful about that low blood sugar and everything.”

“Exactly,” Levi states, feeling a tightness in the pit of his stomach when he sees the brightness of Erwin’s eyes.

They’re already half naked by the time they shut the bedroom doors and fall into bed. The scent in the sheets is both of them now, though only through passing moments like this; he doesn’t want to spend the night there and rub everyone’s faces in the whole thing first thing in the morning. But even so, it feels familiar already, like it’s the most natural thing in the world that there should be a bed that smells like them. The sex is more familiar too, and every time Levi feels like he’s less of a mess of nerves and self-consciousness - though it took him until their fourth time doing it to get up the nerve to ask Erwin what he likes, how he likes it, what he wishes Levi would do, and his replies to Erwin when he asked the same were little more than shrugs and nods. Exchanging that information felt like the crossing of some boundary, like it more than anything else made this real and got them to where they are now - lying next to each other in a bed they almost share, in a room that feels almost theirs. The fire crackles in the heater and Levi stretches his body, feeling so satisfied and heavy-limbed that even the thought of dinner feels like an offence for taking him out of that moment of comfort - and still another part of him is telling him to get out now, to wash up and hide the evidence that he ever came to Erwin’s room in the first place.

“You want to come walk the dogs with me?” he asks Erwin, doing his best to ignore the long exhale he lets out.

“Sure,” he answers nonetheless. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Levi allows himself another thirty seconds of cosiness before dragging himself to the bathroom and brushing his teeth with the toothbrush he’s hidden in the cupboard. Erwin’s already dressed when he gets out and pulls on his own clothes from the floor, retying the laces of his shoes and shrugging back into his coat. Through all of it, Erwin is quiet - patient but also, Levi can tell, more than a little sad. He’s done this every time after they’ve had sex during the day; a desperate hope that a wealth of fresh air will draw Erwin’s scent off his body. It doesn’t, Levi knows as well as Erwin does, but for some reason he can’t stop himself from doing it.

The fresh snow that’s fallen over the path slows them down and makes walking so labored they’ve both fallen quiet and focused on breathing by the time they’ve reached the woods. The dogs bounce excitedly between the trees, making the most of the time they have outside the enclosure - all save for Hulk, who walks ahead of them just as slowly as they do. They’ve nearly reached the lake when something suddenly alerts the pack; they hear a loud chorus of barking in the distance and see Sesame and Biscuit galloping back to them, agitated and barking like mad.

“You smell that?” Erwin asks, frowning as he peers in the direction of the pack.

It takes a few seconds for Levi to catch it, warm and tangy and raw. His heart begins a wild race, worsened by the exertion when he follows Erwin toward the source of the scent, pushing through the snow as best he can from one of Erwin’s footsteps to the other. He catches the roof of the old house in the distance, right where the dogs are calling out from, and beyond their barking he can just make out someone yelling, incoherent and slurring. A few smears of red shine out from the clean white snow.

They find him cowering against the door of the house, shouting and waving around a thin fallen-down branch of a tree clumsily at the dogs with one hand while the other keeps a hold on the torn and bloody mess of a wound on his right leg. There’s more blood on the sleeve of his jacket where Levi can see chunks of fabric missing, like it’s been pulled apart by something. When Erwin calls away the dogs and rushes up to him, he slumps onto the porch and cries out in pain, grasping his leg desperately with both hands.

“Thank god you found me, man,” the stranger sobs, wincing when Erwin hurries to tie his scarf below his knee as a make-shift tourniquet. “I was trying to get into this house, you know, trying and find a phone or something ‘cause- Ah, Jesus!”

“Try and stay still, okay,” Erwin tells him, calm but stern, examining the wound on the man’s arm. “What’s your name?”

“Gavin.”

“Okay, Gavin,” Erwin says, pausing to move Biscuit out of the way when she blocks his view of the guy’s arm, until Levi grabs her by the collar and pulls her back. “Don’t worry, you’re going to be alright. Levi?”

“Yeah?”

“Go check that shed, see if there’s anything we could use as a stretcher,” Erwin tells him, pulling his wad of keys out of his pocket and selecting one before handing them to Levi. “Use the flashlight on your phone.”

“Got it,” Levi tells him, already wading through the snow toward the shed.

After a couple minutes of frantic searching he finds an old wooden sledge almost the size of a small sleigh, with a complicated mess of leather harnesses attached. He carries the whole contraption outside and leaves Erwin to figure it out while he locks up the shed, only noticing he’s locked up Biscuit when he hears her barking on the other side of the door. By the time he’s managed to coax her out, Erwin has secured Gavin onto the sledge and made enough sense of the harness to get a decent hold of it. They start their journey back, the dogs restless and whining while Erwin pulls the sledge through the snow, panting and straining.

“Run ahead and find someone to help,” he tells Levi once they reach the path. “And tell someone to go get Hange.”

He nods and sets off, running as fast as he can through the woods with the dogs on his heels. He’s drenched in sweat by the time he reaches the house and rushes into the dining room so out of breath he can barely get a word out. When they finally understand what he’s trying to say, Mike and Nan jump up at once followed by several others, and rush into the mudroom to pull on their clothes. Nan gets into the hybrid and speeds off well past the limit while Levi leads the rest of them to the path, limbs trembling now both from the effort and the adrenaline. They get back to the house before Nan and Hange and sit Gavin down in the dining room where Edith and Ansel rush over with heating blankets and disinfectant.

“It wasn’t one of our dogs that did this?” Ansel asks, incredulous, but Gavin shakes his head.

“No way it was a dog, man,” he says, sniffling. “That thing was huge, like a wolf or something.”

Levi feels his heart skip a beat and he shares a careful look with Erwin.

“Aw, man, I should never have come here man,” Gavin whines, shivering even under the heating blankets. “You know I was supposed to go to Minneapolis to see my cousin today. I should’ve just fucking done that, man, I should’ve just gotten on that bus.”

“It’s all going to be alright,” Edith says, her voice so calming Levi can feel it settling his own heart. “We’re going to take you to the emergency room in just a moment. Don’t you worry about a thing, you hear me? You’re going to be just fine.”

Gavin seems anything but convinced, leaning back and lying down on the chairs they’ve set him down on, clearly ready to burst into tears at any moment. He hasn’t calmed down much by the time Hange and Moblit get there and when they pack him onto the backseat of the hybrid to go to the hospital in town, Erwin joins them to make sure he can at least give a halfway decent account of some of the events that happened. He doesn’t get back until hours later, shuffling into the dining room, red-faced and obviously exhausted.

“They didn’t get a whole lot out of him, to be honest,” he explains in-between mouthfuls of soup and bread. “Just that he’d been walking in the woods and that he got attacked by some animal. ‘Like a wolf only bigger’ is what he said.”

“Well what was he doing in the woods in the first place?” Edith asks and Levi notes instantly the hesitant look Erwin casts in his direction.

“He said he was visiting a friend,” he replies slowly. “In the trailer park, as far as I understand it.”

They fall quiet, and Levi can tell they’re all asking themselves the same questions. Who was he visiting? Who attacked him and why? On which side of the border did the attack happen? But no one says any of this out loud, and Levi knows it’s because they’re trying to spare his feelings. He’s still thinking about it when he gets into bed that night. Though he doesn’t know why, he’s almost certain the person who attacked Gavin was Kenny, or was sent by Kenny to do it. But why would he give a shit about some random human guy to the point of wanting to bite his fucking leg off? The question keeps him up past midnight, though he knows he’ll get no answers no matter how long he tries.

He recounts the story to Farlan on Saturday when they hit the mall - the first time they’ve seen each other in weeks - and gets exactly the sort of reaction he was expecting: Farlan vowing never to walk around in the woods alone again.

“He said he came from the trailer park?” he asks Levi, frowning at his iced coffee. “Do you think he was telling the truth about... you know, everything?”

“What do you mean?”

Farlan shrugs. “Do you think it could’ve been Kenny... you know.” He lowers his voice and leans closer to whisper, “Stabbing someone again?”

“Dude,” Levi hisses angrily, remembering in a flash the smears of blood up and down Kenny’s arms and how scared he had been to see it. “Which part of ‘you can never bring it up and never talk about it do you not understand?”

“Well sorry if that’s the first conclusion my mind jumped to,” Farlan says. “I mean, don’t you think the whole thing sounds kind of... shady?”

“It was definitely an animal bite,” Levi tells him sternly. “Even the doctors said so.”

“Well alright then,” Farlan replies. “Maybe it was the same thing that bit you, before. Honestly, we should get some rangers in the woods or something...”

They pass a score of large windows behind which another blizzard is gathering strength, making Farlan groan. He’s still sporting a hint of a tan from his trip to Hawaii with Flagon and when they continue on their way, he keeps complaining about the weather which doesn’t allow him to wear any of the nice things he bought on Oahu.

“I was actually thinking,” Levi finally says as a way of interrupting another tirade, “that I could... you know. Look at some clothes, now. Or whatever.”

Next to him Farlan stops in his tracks, his iced coffee forgotten mid-sip as he stares at Levi.

“I’m sorry?”

“Don’t,” Levi warns him, gritting his teeth. “Just like a shirt or something. It’s no big deal.”

It’s something he’s been thinking about ever since they got back from the trip. After packing away his suit, changing into his hoodie and jeans the morning they left felt like going from a Tesla to a goddamn -76 Ford Taunus. He’s even thought about asking Erwin to come with him, but he knows Erwin would insist on paying, and he’d end up feeling like he’s been shopping with Edith, only worse.

“Okay,” Farlan says slowly and Levi can sense his mounting excitement. “Okay. Okay, so what kind of things did you... I mean, what do you want? Do you need like jeans or-”

“I was thinking more like trousers,” Levi tells him, shoving his hands into his pockets and slouching ahead. “And a couple of shirts. Or maybe like shoes or something. I don’t know. Something that’s like... good quality.”

“Oh, I know where we need to go,” Farlan tells him, turning around and leading him in the other direction, stopping when they reach the small boutique where Levi got his suit.

“You’re kidding, right?” he says to Farlan. “I can’t afford anything in there!”

“Well we can still look around,” Farlan counters, pulling him toward the store, “and then try and find something similar somewhere else.”

“No, come on,” Levi argues, shaking his head. “I don’t want to waste anyone’s time like that.”

“You don’t even know you wouldn’t be able to-”

“Yeah, I do,” Levi interrupts him. “I’ve got a suit from there.”

Farlan’s brows rise so high they nearly disappear under his quiff.

“Erwin bought it for me,” Levi hurries to explain, continuing when he sees Farlan about to speak, “Flagon just took you to Hawaii two fucking weeks ago, so you can shut up about it.”

Farlan raises his hands defensively, but when Levi turns his back mutters, “You know they probably cost the same.”

“Don’t,” he snaps, despairing when he realizes it’s probably true.

“Come on,” Farlan says, tugging him to the door of the shop from his sleeve. “We’re not wasting anyone’s time if we look around. It’s literally that guys job to help people in the store.”

“Even people who don’t even plan on buying anything?” Levi argues, but steps inside after Farlan anyway.

He instantly feels like he’s in a library with the hush that lingers between the shelves. He can’t see Amir between the register, but he appears from the backroom a moment after they’ve entered, smiling at Levi in a way that tells him he remembers him. He greets them politely and asks them if there’s anything they need help with. Levi tries to shake his head but before he can, Farlan steps forward.

“Yes, hi,” he says, pausing to admire a lavender-colored shirt that hangs from a rack nearby. “My friend wanted to buy some new things and we were wondering what you - you know, being a professional - would recommend.”

“Was there anything specifically that you were looking for?” Amir asks Levi who shrugs, feeling suddenly embarrassed.

“I don’t know,” he mutters. “Maybe like a shirt or something?”

“We just got a new line of shirts last week,” Amir says, leading them to a rack laden with a neatly organized array of the most beautiful shirts Levi’s ever seen. “These are 100% organic cotton grown right here in the US.”

“Gorgeous,” Farlan whispers, touching the sleeve of a baby blue one while Levi checks out the price tag and shudders; he tries to be discreet when showing it to Farlan, but Amir catches the gesture. “Do you have anything that’s more... uhh... student budget friendly?”

Amir nods and shows them to another rack, where the shirts look just as nice to Levi - and the price tag almost just as awful. They fiddle with them for a little while, both clearly trying to think of an exit plan, while Amir is clearly growing more and more amused. Finally he speaks up, abandoning his customer-service persona.

“Can I give you guys some advice?” he asks and Levi cringes internally, expecting a lecture on how wrong it is to waste people’s time. “I can see you really want to make an effort with this - but I know what it’s like to not be able to afford the kind of clothes you’d like to buy.”

“Story of my life,” Farlan mutters under his breath.

“So I want to help you out a little,” Amir goes on. “If the items we carry are a little outside your price range, you can go to another store, find something that you like, and bring it in here to get it altered. Because as long as the material of the fabric is good and the fit is perfect for you, it’ll look like a very good quality shirt even if you bought it from H&M.”

“Is that like a thing that people do?” Farlan asks, sounding way too flabbergasted to Levi. “Like, something I could’ve been doing all this time?”

“Absolutely,” Amir says. “Getting the shirt altered will not cost a huge sum of money, it’ll still be more affordable than buying a hundred dollar shirt - especially since that would probably require some alterations as well.”

“Okay, so...” Levi starts. “What kind of shirt should I buy?”

“First, find something that’s 100% cotton,” Amir tells him. “If you go to a store like H&M, they usually have some sort of line of eco-friendly or conscious clothes, which you should take a look at. Secondly you should try and find a shirt that’s the closest to being a good fit for your body as you can get. Try and find something that fits especially well around the shoulders, it doesn’t matter so much if the sleeves or the hem are a little too long because those are relatively easy fixes. And absolutely do not buy anything that feels too tight or too small on any part of your body, I am not a magician and cannot make more fabric where there isn’t any.”

“Got it,” Levi confirms. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Amir says, smiling. “Oh, and you should know if you bring me anything made with polyester, I will set it on fire right before your eyes.”

“Uhh... sure.”

“I already have your measurements on file, so just drop the shirts off once you’ve found them, and we’ll take it from there,” he offers lastly, walking them to the door and turning to Farlan. “And if you ever find anything in lavender, buy it immediately because it is going to look perfect on you.”

“Is that guy the best or what?” Farlan gasps once they’re far enough away from the store. “Like seriously, that was so nice. I am honestly going to take all of my clothes there. Such a nice guy.”

“Yeah,” Levi agrees, fiddling with his phone. “I’m pretty sure Erwin had sex with him.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I don’t know,” Levi says, peering at a map of the mall to locate the H&M store. “Just a vibe I got the last time we were there.”

“I could see that happening,” Farlan muses, trying to cast another glance through the store windows. “Speaking of sex with Erwin...”

“Yeah?” Levi asks after the meaningful silence Farlan has ended his sentence with stretches on, and he rolls his eyes.

“Well,” Farlan says emphatically. “How is it?”

“Am I going to talk about it at a crowded fucking mall on a Saturday afternoon?”

“I don’t know,” Farlan counters. “Are you going to talk about it locked up in your bedroom where Isabel can eavesdrop on you?”

It’s a fair point - and not just because of Isabel either.

“It’s good,” Levi finally decides, rolling his eyes at Farlan’s unimpressed expression. “What?”

“Saying ‘it’s good’ is like giving it a three-star review on yelp,” Farlan says. “Is that what it is? Something you’d rate three-stars, like it’s a sub-standard Applebees or something?”

“I said it’s good, not that it’s average.”

“Trust me, when it comes to talking about sex, saying it’s good is like, half a point above saying it’s fine,” Farlan lets him know and Levi sighs.

“What do you want from me?” he asks. “You want me to describe it in detail or something?”

“No,” Farlan replies impatiently. “But there’s a whole range of things between all the gory details and just saying ‘it’s good’.”

Levi sighs and walks into the H&M store, giving himself a couple of seconds to think of what to say while he looks for the shirts.

“Alright,” he finally says, turning back to Farlan who looks at him, expectant. “God’s honest truth? It’s literally the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“I knew it,” Farlan says triumphantly. “So he’s like, really good?”

“Yeah,” he reiterates, checking the size of a bluish-green shirt and taking it off the rack. “It’s the best thing about my life right now. No joke.”

They keep talking about it a little while they look through the shirts, but something keeps Levi from going into any specific details even when Farlan provides a whole score of them about himself and Flagon. He finds a couple of shirts he likes and buys them after trying them on, along with a jumper and a cardigan; all of them cost less put together than one shirt from Amir’s shop would’ve done. On their way back, Farlan spots another store and finds a lavender shirt that Levi wouldn’t be caught dead wearing, but which makes Farlan smile from ear to ear. Levi waits while he gets his measurements taken and they leave their contact info at the register with Farlan promising to bring in a ton more business when he comes around with all the rest of his clothes.

They drive back to the house together and Farlan continues down the road to Flagon’s after a quick hi to Ansel and Edith and Isabel. After he’s gone, Edith suggests an essay prep session again but Levi declines, pretending he’s tired though in reality he’d just rather not be around her and the strange mix of emotions she’s feeling about him. He holes himself up in his room until Isabel rushes in, panting from excitement.

“We’ve figured out the harness for the sledge!” she tells him, dripping melting snow on the carpet. “It’s wolf-sized! It’s for wolves!”

“So?”

“So!” she nearly yells, looking at him like he’s an idiot. “We can take turns pulling the pups around the yard! Mike and Nan and Erwin have already said yes!”

“Fine,” he says and sighs. “Just give me a minute to change. And Farlan’s over at Flagon’s place, so we can’t go anywhere near there. Okay?”

He slips into his fur while she waits outside his door and follows her downstairs at a lazy jog. The sledge stands by the side of the house, complete with Mike and Erwin already at the head of the team of four while Ansel is securing the harness around Nan. Though the sight of the leather straps makes his skin crawl, Levi takes his place after a moment’s hesitation, letting Ansel pat his head when he’s done with the buckles.

“Everybody ready?” Isabel asks from the sledge, holding the reins loosely in her hands. “To the pup house!"

It’s the longest it’s ever taken Levi to cross the distance; pulling the sledge as a team is not easy, and doesn’t seem to come naturally to any of them. The harness restricts their movements and makes it harder for Levi to follow Erwin’s lead. The differences in sizes between them don’t help either, meaning more legwork for him and Nan and less for Mike and Erwin, which makes for an even ride. Still, Isabel doesn’t seem bothered by it at all, and keeps egging them on with various noises that Levi finds downright demeaning. They’ve barely gotten the hang of it by the time they sit the first of the pups down in the sledge, and during the hours they spend pulling them around the yard, chased by their screams and laughter, Levi’s surprised none of the little brats falls off and breaks a bone.

They leave the sledge by the pup house and run back still in their fur, all clearly enjoying the freedom to roam as much as Levi is. He keeps close to Erwin, paws fitting into the tracks he leaves in the fresh snow. They part with Mike and Nan by the path to their house and continue onward, finally getting to Erwin’s door and entering, ruffling the melting snow out of their hair. Levi lies in bed while Erwin lights a fire in the heater, watching the glow of the flames playing on his naked body.

He’s asleep by the time the fire burns out, but Levi slips out of the bed in the dim gleam of the smouldering embers and pulls on one of Erwin’s shirts, shivering with the sudden cold when he starts making his way through the house, stopping when he hears Ansel quietly calling out his name from the living room. He peaks his head in, not entering before the old man invites him to from his seat by the radio, which is playing classical music so quietly Levi can barely hear it. The sudden brightness of the lamp makes him squint and rub his eyes.

“Trouble sleeping?” Ansel asks, smiling when Levi shrugs in a desperate attempt to act casual despite the hammering of his heart and the incriminating size of the shirt he’s wearing. “I get that too. It’s the full moon that does it.”

“Good thing it’s a Saturday,” Levi mutters, folding his arms over his chest as if somehow it’s going to make the shirt look even remotely his.

Ansel agrees, nodding quietly with the same gentle smile still plastered onto his lips. Levi shifts his weight on his feet and clears his throat, trying to think of the most polite way to say he’s going back to bed when the old man speaks up again.

“Edith and I are very different in that,” he says. “She sleeps very well - unless there’s something she’s worried about. But me...” He fixes Levi with a stare that feels meaningful, though Levi’s not sure how to decipher it. “There is nothing that troubles me tonight.”

Levi meets his gaze and fidgets uneasily with the left sleeve of the shirt. It’s a tense moment, full of the same silence that’s been plaguing the house for weeks. Finally Ansel pick his book up from his lap again and smiles.

“You should try and get some sleep,” he tells Levi, who takes a few steps toward the door. “Wherever you’d like, as far as I’m concerned.”

He leaves after a hasty nod, sneaking upstairs to his room and locking the door behind himself, though he’s not sure why he feels the need to. He pulls the shirt over his head and dresses in a t-shirt and underwear before crawling into bed. It feels cold and lonely compared to Erwin’s and Levi wishes he’d had the courage to take Ansel’s advice.


End file.
